Saturday, April 30, 2011

A Beautiful Evening in the Graveyard

I know the title of the post may sound a bit morbid, but Howard Cemetery is anything but morbid. I think cemeteries make some people uneasy because we as a species are afraid of our own mortality. The big questions of what is next on our journey are hard for any of us to answer, no matter our spiritual convictions. But I find cemeteries peaceful, a place to reflect on the lives that have come before mine, and those that will come after I have gone into the West. Death, graveyards, or the things we think lurk in the dark, do not deserve our fear, it is the not caring for our history, our past, to forget all the wonderful lives that came before us; that is where the fear should lie. With each grave stone that is cleaned, with each stone excavated, with the genealogy of those people researched; we are keeping those who pioneered this area alive. What would they think of the work we are doing, the technology that has been used to plot their graves and research their lives would seem fantastically other worldly to them. But here we all are in 2011,remembering all those souls that came before us. Someday when I am dead 150 years or so, I hope someone takes the time to clean my stone, and remember me.

Karen Everett

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