Cemeteries

I love a good cemetery.

Maybe my penchant for cemeteries started when I was little and my parents dragged my sisters and me to my grandmother’s headstone every Memorial Day weekend.

They piled us into their car and drove two-plus hours to the tiny cemetery where she is buried. Dad would weed around her grave and plant flowers that would bloom all summer long. He said he had promised her that—as long as he was alive—her grave would always have flowers. While he and mom worked on her grave, my sisters and I played in and around the headstones. Driving back home always meant dinner out somewhere. It was an adventure.

Over the years, I found cemeteries to be comforting and peacefully quiet. I love wandering down paved or gravel paths before veering off to take a closer look at an interesting headstone. I am fascinated by names and families...by men who are named and women who are identified simply as “wife of...”...by husbands who outlive several wives (who typically gave birth to multiple children before succumbing to death)...by thoughts engraved in the stones (“Together Forever”...“Landed in the Arms of Jesus”...“Always In Our Hearts”). When my husband and I lived in Virginia, I was amazed to see that some cemeteries held Union as well as Confederate troops; often, they were separated—one side of a sidewalk dedicated to the south and the other side dedicated to the north. Together Forever indeed.

To me, cemeteries offer a place for quiet reflection. A place to walk and to be left alone. A place of comfort.

That said, I don’t want to be plugged into a cemetery when I die. Rather, I anticipate being cremated and scattered somewhere pretty...the Shenandoah River...the Cuyahoga Valley National Park...the North Cascades. No headstone. No fence. No cemetery.