Resting in Peace

When I was younger, I loved wandering through cemeteries.  I did the math and figured out how old people were when they died.  I traced family ties and made up stories.  But I didn't want to be buried in one.  I wanted to be returned to the earth.  I had a vision of my ashes spread across a favorite mountainside.

In the past few years, I've explored the cemeteries at Mepkin Abbey.  There's the cemetery of the former plantation owners.

And then, there's the African-American cemetery.

I've wondered who leaves the offerings at the cemetery.  I'm assuming it's not family members.

I now see the benefit of being buried in a graveyard:  that hope that later generations, ones who have no reason to know me, will stop and take a minute to think of me, and perhaps leave a token.  In this way, perhaps I won't be totally forgotten.

Long after paper crumbles into dust and bones have broken down, a headstone remains.