How far we’ve come ....

I was transcribing photos of graves from Bathgate Old Cemetery today , when I came across this one.
Michael Convay lost seven children in infancy. After his own death at the age of 48, a surviving daughter died in childbirth aged 19, and her baby died three months later.
Intrigued by no mention of his wife, I did some quick research on Scotland’s People. Her name was Bridget Murtoch and they married in 1850. None of the infants were registered in the Parish birth records, but I found some of their deaths recorded in the statutory registers which started in 1855. No sign of the death of the mother and she is not engraved on the stone .
We have no idea what the day to day lives of our ancestors were really like, though I know my own grandmother lost four children too. Stones telling stories like this give you pause for thought.