When you die in Hardcore Mode, in addition to being sent back to a respawn point some of your items become broken. In order to use them again, you must take them back to the location you died. That  When you are fast enough you can touch your tombstone to restore all items from this death. When your tombstone is, gone you have to walk back use all broken items near where you died to your restore them. Using a broken item will tell you how far you are from the point so you will always be able to find the location. Touching the tombstone(s)is only a shortcut.