Dust to Dust

Finally, March, though we got a snowstorm last night and the temperature dove right back to the bottom again. As we hunkered down, we recalled a sunny day a few months ago when we stumbled upon an early 19th century graveyard on a back road in Ohio. There might have been 20 or so graves, clearly all from one family, enclosed behind a simple black wrought iron fence. As is often the case in old graveyards, many of the headstones were for very young children, having died at birth or of some childhood illness, or for young women who died giving birth. But something else is unusual too, many of the headstones not only mark the date of birth and death, but the age in years, months and days. The careful counting up, the chiseling into the stone; did they value each day more or were they simply more aware of the passing of time?