Stay the Course

Grave markers in a line.

Sometimes we think we know our path. Stay the course. Push on. Plow forward. Keep moving until your feet give out from under you and there is nothing left to give.

Then you end up here. We all do eventually. Hopefully at a ripe old age, but that isn’t always the case for everyone. It sure wasn’t the case for me. See that stone third from the left? The short and squat one tucked between two larger ones, as if I am getting swallowed up even in death? Yup, that’s me. And it tracks.

I was always someone in life who had what I hear some kids call “supporting character energy.” They walk through the cemetery with those big muffs on their ears, and I assume they are giggling and debating books streaming through the sound systems. I had to ask some neighbors about these digital monstrosities, as we never had them in my day. We read books and listened to music the analog way. The boring, safe way some might say. A supporting character in my own story. There but not present.

Sometimes they play the volume loud enough I can catch a trickle of a story floating by. I live through these characters taking control, exerting themselves, seeking the best. I had a fine life. Did what was expected of me. Stayed in neat rows. Ended up buried in one. But as you can see, I am sinking. Fading again. Into the literal dirt and earth. Second character energy.

The rays of sunshine that poke through the order make me want to live out main character energy in death. I find being a spirit allows me freedom I never had. I make friends with my neighbors. I watch out for their living heirs, as I never had any children of my own. I travel a path I never dared to in life. I shake the leaves and bristle the stones. I listen to the audiobooks to make sure I am living out loud.

“Would I spend my life not having Sasha by my side? I felt a physical ache when she was gone. Like a piece of my soul cracked from the inside, leaving me empty. What was I doing sitting here in my boring apartment? I needed to go to her.”

The woman listening to the book turned down another row of stones, and I didn’t follow. I know how the book ended. The main character took his life into his own hands. Made it what he wanted. He would find his love. Make the grand gesture. Live authentically. Whatever rows or boxes or lines people tried to put him in stood no chance when he pushed back. I know because that was me in death. I wished it was me in life when I could have enjoyed it more.

Felt more ocean air. Kisses on my skin. Fingers twined with mine. I realize now what I missed was an all-encompassing joy that snakes into your pores and never lets go. Happiness that becomes part of you. The sunshine peeking through the stones reminds me I can still grab it now. I do not have to stay the course. I can chart my own.

Listen and Soothe

Grave stones overlooking the ocean.

The waves are lyrical.

They crash. They pound. They ebb and flow and build and recede and stir and settle.

You can see from the path, one carved not by purpose but by time, leads us all to the ocean. Visitors traverse the steps we have taken. Our souls gravitate regularly toward the ocean’s rhythms that beat life back into our skeletons, air back into our bodies.

The path is not straight. It zigs and zags. It moves and bends to step over friends. The path is a sign of respect from the living to the dead. It leads not directly to the ocean, of course, as we are on a high cliffside. The path leads instead to those two benches. What was that poem? Two paths diverge in the woods, and I took the one less traveled? Sometimes my spirit stirs in the night, tracing the human-made trail and taking a seat.

I can’t see the ocean all that well. That’s my gravestone there in the bottom left, felled by time, energy, and pressure. I can no longer perch on top of it to gather my thoughts. And frankly, it feels rude to pop a squat on a neighbor's stone, so I float along to the benches. Sometimes the right, sometimes the left. My choice usually mirrors what side of my brain I want to engage or quiet.

I watched the woman take this photo. She stood in the grass unafraid. Undaunted. She seemed carefree. I was sure she would walk down the path, with its lines and ridges etched so clearly. I almost urged her to. I rustled the tall grass. The blades meant as arrows pointing her way. But she merely stood, inhaled, and moved along after snapping the photo with her phone. I venture a guess she didn’t even see what was right in front of her.

We rarely do. I know in life I missed some of those signs. Those moments pointing me toward a choice. I either ignored them, missed them, or tuned them out. Sure, I took chances. I took leaps of faith. I had a successful career in my Scottish town. I was active in church - I mean, how else do you think I landed this primo burial spot on a cliff overlooking the ocean? That was not the work of the devil I assure you.

But sometimes when you are deep in the moments, you miss the vision. Again, poetry reminds us about seeing the forest through the trees. Or is that one a proverb? For this woman on this perfectly sunny and amazingly rare clear day, the path was right there. Yet she missed it. Maybe that was on purpose. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her time kept her chugging along to something else. What if she stopped and saw it? What would have happened had she sat on my benches? Would her soul have found the same calm as mine? Would she have stepped off to read my fallen stone, learned a bit about me?

The elements are wearing away the text on my stone. My story. Each day I fade a bit more. The path and the ocean act as my anchors. If I listen closely enough, I can conjure memories of my mother’s laughter and my father’s stern tone during our family trips to the beach below. I can hear myself squeal with delight as seagulls stole my fish and chips. I can taste the fear when I was dying alone.

So, this path, this meandering in the grass is a tether to joy. It brings me back to times that were simpler, happier, calmer. My soul stirs, and I go. I listen to the ocean, I soothe with its sound.

What We Leave

Sorrow is consuming. It churns the acids inside us, makes us convulse and writhe.

Grief is not a roller coaster, as they say. Roller coasters have clear patterns when you look at them. Up. Down. Upside down. Over. Backwards. Fast. Slow. Rinse. Repeat.

Grief is a wave. Up. Down. Churning. Fast. Slow. Calm. Violent. Heavy. Always winning.

Eventually, the wave captures us all. And once we think we have come to the surface, it bears down again in unexpected ways. Even when the ocean looks like glass, what is underneath is ripping and roaring. And living. And dying.

Waves in an ocean can take you by surprise. One minute you’re sailing along, then another the wave starts building and climbing until it breaks into a milky, bubbly crescendo that bleeds onto the shore. The wave changes the spaces and places it hits. No drop of water is ever the same, and neither is the shore it hits. The sand is always and ever different. Waves morph the land and sea. Grief morphs the heart and spirit.

The language surrounding waves is often violent - they crash, drive, rip, roar. They are in constant motion, swirling and creating. Waves form from wind and create friction. They live. They move. They are a literal force of nature plowing, flowing. Interestingly, waves move energy, not water. Just as quickly as waves come, they can die and burn out. Waves can be tidal, pushed and pulled from gravity and the moon. From forces we cannot see with the naked eye but know are there.

But waves are also soothing, calming, and cleansing. Over time, they can take hard surfaces and turn them into precious sea glass that is smooth to the touch, coveted, beautiful. The energy changes. It goes from violent and hard to beautiful and soft. From destructive to creative.

Death and grief have a way of following this same pattern. We might not know when it will hit us, because we cannot see the forces. It might be in a look. A place. An unexpected memory. But the gut punch comes, and we have to ride it out like an expert surfer navigating the energy ripples. Then we can return to the calm and try again when the next wave hits.

Embrace the Tired

Sometimes it’s about the juxtaposition.

Sometimes you shine bright, putting out this bright color and effervescence. Others, you’re breaking and cracking and crumbling.

Time has changed my pallor and somehow made it shine. You cannot miss me here in Paris. I catch your eye right away. My orange sheen brings people over, curious about my story. It’s funny because in life, I blended in. People rarely noticed me, probably because I rarely noticed myself.

In a city like Paris, I was never quite enough. Never fashionable enough. Never quite pretty enough. My makeup wasn’t quite perfect enough. My hair was never straight enough. Yet somehow I was too much. My laugh too loud. My body too wide. My hair too unruly. My clothes too frumpy. I was too plain yet too loud. I was too quiet but spoke too freely. I moved through life as a walking conundrum - never enough yet too much.

In death, this statue’s face reflects my exhaustion. When I was buried in the late 1800s, my statue was a plain color. It blended in much like I did. Yet somehow the elements of Paris wanted me to enjoy in death what I never could in life: a chance to be seen.

Through the years, my plain colors shifted to this bright peach and orange. When the sun comes out, I shine. I radiate. I glow. People flock here to read my stone, but it’s faded. I feel like someone when people try to look into my eyes. What they see in my face is the duality of radiance and sleepiness, of sunshine and sadness. My eyes look down searching for something. Some days I look for answers. Others I seek questions.

The bracelet on my wrist is a replica of a plain gold band I bought myself. I wanted a sparkle and when my soul wouldn’t come through for me, I thought putting on some artificial glow could do the trick. Fake it until you make it, they said. Now, the sheen on my stone matches that luster I tried to recreate.

Some days the statue fakes it for me. It fakes the smile I cannot feel or muster. My insides remind me that being sad is part of the human experience. The sadness is etched in my face in the downturned lips, my downtrodden eyes. Yet the orange attracts people, draws me out, pulls them in.

The color teaches me to embrace the rainbow. Embrace the spectrum that is life. And death.

Lost in the Woods

Planks mark graves lost in the woods.

Imagine feeling invisible.

I don’t mean in the “if you had a superpower for a day, what would it be?” sense. I mean in the profoundly lost, lonely, wandering sense. Yet sometimes, sometimes when we are patient, we remember that while we might be alone, we do not have to be lonely.

You might miss us if you’re wandering this cemetery. Our graves are simply marked by these planks. Most people think they’re driftwood or scrap. Then inevitably, they bend over and try to move the planks aside but to no avail. They’re rooted into the woods as much as the trees flanking us. People rarely walk up here, though, because the rest of the cemetery is down in what seems like a sinkhole. It takes effort to see us, to recognize us.

We have nothing to let people know we are here. Our identities are lost to history, maybe forever. But if someone takes the time, they see the neat rows. The planks laid out just so. The stories lost with us. The history. The lessons. We relish the times we aren’t alone up here. When someone bends down to kick away the leaves and dirt and debris. When the sun hits just right to warm us up, even Mother Nature acknowledges us.

But most days, we have a profound sense of loneliness. Nobody will ever know my story. I am Mac Ramsey, born here in Florida to parents with no college education. I studied hard in school. I played sports - not well, but I tried. I’d rather bury my face in a book and learn something. The ability to sit still and study earned me not only the first bachelor’s degree in my family, but also the first master’s degree in fine arts. My specialty was expressing myself through abstract art. Paint on canvas that looked haphazard but really had a plan. The colors. The movement. The shapes. But the pattern? Oh, the pattern that emerged is where my art came to life.

It was always random at the end. I could only control so much. Indeed, I had to control almost everything in my life until art set me free. It was no mystery why I gravitated toward the chaos. Somehow, though, my art was controlled chaos. I chose what went into it. Who saw it and how. My art was exhibited all over the world. One newspaper writer in 1967 called me “this generation’s avant garde champion.” I saved that review. I brought a copy to my parents’ graveside. I wanted them to see the success I had. I craved it. Once I tasted the spotlight, I never wanted to let it go. So, I pushed and pushed.

But my art also took me away from life. I recoiled into myself, constantly driving for what was next. I had to be chasing, chasing, chasing. Never resting, sitting, staying. The solitude was my downfall. After all my global success and trappings that came with it, I chose to settle on a property deep in the Central Florida woods. Neighbors were spread out, and I would enjoy the silence. I was blissfully lost in the woods.

That same solitude, though, was my downfall. When I got sick, nobody was there to take care of me. I died alone in my house. A neighbor got suspicious when they didn’t see me on the porch reading the morning paper during their morning walks, and they eventually called in a wellness check. A week later.

There is a deep irony that even in death I remain lost in the woods. I am forced into stillness now, but the movement and vibrancy and adulation I craved in life is gone. People walk right by us. It’s an effort to see me and the others buried nearby. We can hear them asking if these are even graves. They don’t ask if we are people. They ask about our corpses, our bodies. Never our souls and spirits.

My greatest nightmare of irrelevance in life has manifested in death. It feels good to be anonymous sometimes, but it quickly wears off when days, months, and even years pass without someone giving us one thought. Being lost in the woods isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Take a Load Off

The devil's chair. 

Come. Sit a spell. Take a load off.

My chair is here for people to rest, relax, enjoy. While the cemetery around me might be crumbling - and my chair’s foundation cracking - my chair remains a steadfast place to stop.

Over the years, people have taken to calling it the Devil’s Chair. I really have no idea why. I was a lovely, affable man in life. I was a community leader. Father. Grandfather. Husband. Doctor. My whole life was about giving back, so I really wanted a chair at my gravesite to ensure people could come visit and relax. Standing can be hard on the body, especially when you have to trudge through sludge.

You see, I think I devoted my life to others because it gave me a sense of peace and fulfillment. Sometimes it was just easier than fighting. Giving took a lot out of me, and people rarely asked after my feelings. Yet here I am in death still giving, though a tradition has seemed to form that’s just for me.

One day, someone left a beer on my chair. I didn’t mind. They sat a while in silence, drinking in the beer and the air. I guess they forgot to take the trash, so the empty can sat a while until a Florida storm blew it away. But not before enough people saw it to start a new tradition of bringing a beer to my chair when they visit the cemetery. Sometimes they drink it and leave me a bit. Sometimes the can is full. But my soul is never empty.

I try to send visitors subtle hints that I can hear them, sense them, feel them. I might rustle the trees. Move around the debris. I hope it doesn’t come across as freaky. That is the last thing I want people to feel in a cemetery. I assume people sit because they also want to feel something, to feel a connection. Cemeteries are for the living after all. They are places where people can connect back to themselves. My chair serves that purpose, allowing people to sit, to turn internally, to commune with nature and the spiritual. That is why I want them to know I am listening.

After all, humans seek and crave connection. The Devil’s Chair is so scary, and I have no idea where the name came from. But I do know people are curious enough to see it, to sit on it, take photos and videos of it. Then more people come visit me. If such a scary name gets people into the cemetery, then I am all for it.

But seriously, folks. Bring me better beer. The one you see in the photo is dill pickle, and boy was it disgusting. I might be dead, but I still have some taste.

So, come. Sit in my chair. Take a load off. I am here for you when it feels like nobody else is.

Ask Me Something

Church graveyard with red building. 

Stop. Ask. Listen.

This is all we want. We want someone to stop at our gravesite, look at the marker, and ask the universe who we were. What did we leave behind in this world? How does history remember us, if at all?

We see people on their phones, taking photos, scrolling into oblivion. Does anyone bother searing the names on our tombstones? If they did, they’d find some of us fought in the Revolutionary War. Others were church founders and elders. One of us founded this growing city. Nearby is a family with four buried children finally reunited in death with their ever-grieving parents.

Take a minute to find out about someone. That’s the biggest lesson we can tell the living. We try to give subtle clues when people stop into the cemetery. We rustle the trees, make some leaves fall, creak some branches. We hope the wind will catch the American flags planted outside some of our graves. The flags are near the markers indicating us as war veterans. We want people to walk around, to be curious.

This is all many of us wanted in life as well. To be seen. Heard. Cared for. Asked about. Loved fiercely. Now in death, we are walked by. Talked around. Unheard. Passed over. Forgotten. In death, we sadly expect in, but not in life.

In life, we were all vibrant. Effervescent. Trying. We all wanted to be good friends, lovers, parents, caregivers. Some of us gave our lives in service of this country throughout the centuries. Some of us gave our lives so this country could even exist. It would be nice for someone to realize that as they have a loud conversation at our graveside. And that conversation is never about us.

We wonder if it’s exhausting to be this way. To never be curious. To never ask a question. In our day, we had to converse. Or we had to sit in comfortable silence. We could be bored. Today, we get the sense that people are expendable if the conversations we hear are anything to judge by. People are terse. Curt. Short. Impatient.

Does anyone ask after each other? Where do you go for a cup of sugar? How can people love thy neighbor if they don’t even know who their neighbors are?

If we could implore the living to do one thing it would be ask each other something. Get to know each other. You might like what you see or not. You might want to keep asking questions or walk away. Either way, you have to try. Converse. Learn. Give. Take. Feel.

After all, we are told that we truly die when people stop telling our stories. But how does this manifest in life when people rarely ask each other to share their stories? What then?

Sweet serenade

My bow is an extension of myself.

I can’t imagine life without my bow. Top athletes say things like, “I could do cartwheels before I could walk” or “I took to water like a fish.” For me, I have no conscious memories of my life without a bow in my hands. There are photos of me in diapers holding a plastic bow and cello. It was one of the many toys in my room, but somehow it was the one that changed my life.

I couldn’t tell you why I picked up the neon-colored instrument as a child. The bow had no strings, but I do remember it feeling like an extension of myself. My dad would say I carried the toy around the house like other kids did a security blanket. Eventually, my parents put me in lessons, and that is when I truly came into myself.

I certainly did not take to it right away. I was dreadful. But my parents wouldn’t let me quit, even when my fingers were bleeding and tears stung my cheeks. They saw in me not greatness but the chance for contentment. None of us ever dreamed that music would take me so far, both physically and metaphorically.

At 21 and a new college graduate, I was selected as lead cellist for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the youngest person to hold the honor. My tryout was what everyone calls an out-of-body experience. While I did not black out, my body and mind were separate entities. My bow was an extension of my being, creating everything beautiful that I had to share. I played with my eyes closed, letting the music flow through my fingertips and into the world.

The opportunity took me touring around the world to place I had no hopes or dreams of seeing growing up in a remote Iceland village. Paris. London. New York. Amsterdam. Tokyo. No matter the place or the audience, I found comfort in my instrument. When the nerves kicked in, I would think back to the joy of my plastic cello and channel that inner child. Music was more than something I did; it was who I am.

Even in death, I want people to know how I moved through the world. Seeing this grave markers tells visitors something about it, something about how I lived and wanted to be remembered. On quiet days, I can almost hear the wind making notes that I played. That still stir my soul.

I like watching people stop to admire my gravestone. It feels like I have an audience again to sweetly serenade.

Alone Together

What looks like an empty field is a burial ground.

I am so impossibly tired of hearing about the restaurant across the street.

Every time someone mentions us, it is almost always in conjunction with the place that “serves the best fries in town” or “has the juiciest burger three years in a row.” Says who? Some kid with a zillion followers on social media? Let me say it clearly: We. Do. Not. Care.

Instead of “researching” burgers and fries, perhaps someone should cross the street to realize this field only looks empty. I am here with hundreds of others, quite literally discarded and forgotten. On this clear day, we actually had two visitors. Two! People come into the nearby facility and never glance over here to give any of us a second thought. And clearly I understand why - it looks like empty land.

I can only imagine people driving by wondering why this prime corner of real estate is empty. Wondering who will finally buy it up to put up apartments that will blow down in a hurricane. Wondering why a drug store or bank chain isn’t clamoring for the real estate.

And really, even though I am cynical - and I have every right to be - I can’t blame the passersby. There is only one sign indicating the cemetery’s name. No plaque. No story. No nothing. You have to look online, and I was again shocked to see these two (did I mention TWO?!?!) visitors did just that. I could hear them discussing our stories. Wondering this time about US.

“So, wait, this story says there are 522 graves here, but does that also mean there are 522 people or more?,” I hear her ask her friend.

“How was the cemetery found if there are no records?” He asks her this as she is reading the story, no doubt learning the grave sites were segregated by race and even class.

“It says someone tried to develop it. Shocker…” Thankfully I could see her eye roll and knew sarcasm in my time. She was, in fact, not shocked at all.

“It’s the potters field, so it’s no wonder there is nothing here. These people were devalued in life, so it’s not surprising they’re also devalued in death.”

Someone gets it! We have nobody come see us. Come leave flowers or flags or candles or teddy bears on our graves. Nobody can keep our legacies alive because nobody knows who is buried here. We were people with stories and lives and contributions before society decided to cast us aside.

We all struggled in some way. Many of us were poor and without homes. Many also had the misfortune of being born Black and poor, quite literally a deadly combination in the U.S. The word people call us is indigent. It sounds so vile coming out of your mouth. Like spit and venom. Piss and vinegar as my dad used to say.

My story is valuable. Like many families, mine lost everything during the Great Depression. Before that, my dad was a successful citrus farmer. We weren’t one of the citrus dynasty families, but we did well enough to know we would have three meals a day. Then Florida’s boom went bust several years before the Depression hit the U.S. hard. A virus destroyed our entire field - and our family - and we could never recover. We ended up floating between friends’ houses while my dad tried to find another job, but that was near impossible with so many providers being in the same sinking ship.

When my dad died about a decade later, we were so poor we could not afford a funeral so the potters field it was. Me? I ended up here with him because I ended up homeless when he died. Mom had already remarried someone up north after the bust, and I never heard from her again after that. She wanted to leave this state and all it took from her behind. We were collateral. I think dad died from a broken heart. With no siblings, I was on my own. I never went to college and could rarely hold down a job. I saw no point, if I am being honest with you.

Why bother working hard when it can all be ripped away? I died on the streets about five years after my dad. I was only 35. Not yet a man, yet far from a boy. They didn’t call it suicide back then, but I got enough alcohol to do the trick. Nobody claimed my body, and I was secretly glad because I could be reunited with my dad. He loved me. He did his best. I can’t say the same for myself.

Is this a legacy I want to share? Not likely. But does my life still matter? Unequivocally yes.

That is why I made sure to hang onto every second of these people standing on the corner wondering about us. About our lives. Who we were. Why nobody cared enough to keep a record. I hear words I cannot understand - “state of exception,” “necronationalism,” and “biopower.” These kids must be smart, or at least know enough fancy language to fool me. They’re taking pictures. He has one of those shutter cameras, while she is using what I know are cell phones.

I see the people across the street using them to snap pictures of their fries and burgers. I see them posting those staged photos online so strangers can give them validation. Turn the damn lens across the street and snap a picture of the field. Of our sign. Figure out who we are.

Our stories are more important than the ones they pretend are real. We are real. We are alone together.

The Things We Carry

Things always start small.

A drop. A seed. A sprout. A moment.

Sometimes those tiny starts turn into something big, bold, and beautiful. Or big, bold, and burdensome. Sometimes all four all at once.

You can’t even see me anymore. I am betting you didn’t even notice me here. Your eyes probably went first to the stray ornament that was blown from the wreath leaning against the tree. I know you saw the cinder block, which then probably led you to look at the wreath from which that errant ball came.

But pan to the left, and you might notice me. Or at least what is left of me. The seed that was planted nearby my grave stone is the thing that has now torn me apart. It is another burden to drag even in death. The popular book “The Things They Carried” might have been about Vietnam, but before that battle I was crawling through trenches during World War 1. If the world only knew the things I carried.

Like many conflicts, WWI sprouted with a seedling of animosity into a global battle of wills and wits and wantonness. Millions died, and as I carried my fellow soldiers out of the trenches and watched them die, I wondered what it was all for? I’d heard all the talking points, read the historical takes when I got home - when I was lucky enough to come home - and still could never rationalize the loss.

I should be glad to be buried here in Lake Hill. The cemetery is close to my home, and when you look around the burial ground, you see many of my relatives here. Yet I seem to be the one lost to history. I remember when they planted the sapling. The gesture was lovely. To my kids, I was always a mighty oak, or so they told me. Hell, I am not an arborist, so this could be any tree, but it looks like a sturdy oak to me.

My daughter piled on the last bit of dirt, stomping on it to pack it in tight. The tree was over my left shoulder, and I get why my family wanted me to have some shade to rest in peace. But my rest, as my life, as been anything but peaceful. As trees are wont to do, this one grew and grew and grew. From an idea of peace to a reality of war.

Well, I might be dramatic with that last bit as someone who has seen actual war and all its atrocities. But dang, this tree has eclipsed me. Someone has to bend down to see the funeral home marker, so at least someone knows my name. They might not know anything about my life, and I am getting a bit tired of only hearing pitying remarks like, “Wow, what happened?” or “Can the stone be saved?”

No, no it cannot. And it’s not fair, because I was here first. Mother Earth always wins, though. The tree’s roots eventually sucked in my headstone, so it’s impossible to tell where the tree begins and I end. The tree represents life and growth, while my stone represents death and regression. My stone is physically being sucked under the ground inch by inch. If a strong Florida summer storm carries away the light tin funeral home marker, I have nothing left to show for my life. Nobody can tell my story if they don’t know I exist.

I carry that with me every day as I watch as the limbs continue their slow sprawl. The wreath was a nice gesture. One of my grandchildren left it during the Christmas season, but that was two years ago. It is fading and falling and flailing. I cannot say for sure who put the cinder block there, but it’s holding up the wreath, keeping it from sliding away in totality. Though as you no doubt noticed, pieces are able to escape.

Staring at the red ornament fading in the sun is a reminder that I, too, am disappearing. Slowly. Surely. But the erasure it all to common in this cemetery. I see it almost every day. Some of the families do a great job of visiting their loved ones. Heck, someone even has a chair and rake here to maintain a grave nearby mine. His entire gravesite is covered in photos and trinkets and memories. It doesn’t seem like he will be forgotten any time soon. There is someone to hold him, to carry him.

For me, the story is different. With my identity slowly being returned to the Earth, I need to hope my family carries on my legacy. That they talk about me. That my photo is still on the mantle. But my sinking grave is symbolic of the burdens I carried in life and now endure in death - all in the name of progress.

That tree was meant to protect. To shade. To hope. It was meant to grow, but like some things that are unchecked, it can grow into something dangerous. It always starts small.

You’d Never Know

Sometimes a photo does not - or cannot - tell the whole story.

Looking at this gorgeous scenery, you might think my resting place is idyllic. Far from it. I mean, okay, fine, it really isn’t that bad. The mountains are gorgeous, especially on this sunny summer day. The temperature rarely goes into sweltering territory like it did in my youth when I lived across the country in the South. But up here in Alaska, even I can admit that I enjoy the open spaces and (mostly) fresh air.

My family was part of the homesteading project to build up Alaska after it became a state. I was young when we moved across country from Alabama. Back home, my parents owned a farm where we raised cattle for slaughter and milk. It was a simple yet hard life. Our fortune rested on the weather, which was often fickle at best, stubborn at worst. When I heard we were packing up for a new adventure, I hoped we were choosing an actual simple life. I could not have been more wrong.

There was a reason the government wanted people to move to Alaska to populate the new state. It was a wasteland, but that was never mentioned. It was propositioned to us as a wide open space of opportunity rather than sweeping despair. But like my family always did, we made it work. I think that is why I resented the place at first because we had to start from nothing. Again. I wanted a life to kick back and enjoy not one where we kept scraping by.

If I thought relying on Mother Nature in the South was a bear, I hadn’t yet met the actual bears and moose and other wildlife that called this land their home. I hadn’t known what permafrost or frozen ground was. I did not understand the ways of blizzards and sub-zero temperatures. I didn’t know anything could be worse than a sweltering summer day. Yet we managed to find it.

Yet we stayed. Even I couldn’t escape the allure of the mountains. The streams. The fishing. The hiking. I had a chance to commune with the land. It was fleeting, though, as harsh temperatures moved in quickly. We had to make sure we could survive, that other homesteading families could thrive. It was a brutal cycle that never ended. I wanted nothing more than to escape.

I assumed the stores and increased population would offer me a reprieve. I thought it would be a chance to escape our land into civilization. Little did I know that progress meant our land being taken over, sometimes destroyed. Strip malls. Seedy bars. Stores that claimed to sell groceries but really peddled expensive tin cans. They all popped up and ruined my landscapes that I had no idea I came to love.

That is why I told you a picture only tells part of the story. You see, if the camera pointed away from my grave marker and toward the street, you would see a busy school nearby. Cars come for pickup and drop off, idling outside and spreading pollution. Not to mention screaming children cutting through the cemetery on their walks home. I don’t quite mind that part, if only they’d stop to look who is buried here. If only someone realized my family was part of who built this state.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case it’s worth nothing if we do not dig deeper. I tried not to lament progress, but here I am still harboring dread. I try to focus on the mountains ahead of me. I try to see their snowcapped beauty as a reminder of simpler times. But yet I cannot escape the feeling that my story will be scooped up and swept away as more stores, more people, more progress looms.

While I cannot control what happens, I can focus on the positives. I get to see this stunning site. I get to feel the breeze. I get to remember how I helped build this state with my hands. Our blood, sweat, and tears are mixed with the land. So, no. A photo cannot tell the whole story.

But it can sure reflect ourselves back to us.

To the bone

Catacombs in Durnstein.

I liked the idea of being a martyr. The term always sounded nice to me when I was a teenage. Dying for something you believe in? Yes, sign me up. Being reduced to a stack of bones? No, that was not in the job description.

My final resting place is a catacombs in Durnstein, Austria. Our region is now known for apricot exports. How do I know this nearly a thousand years later? My death has been reduced to listening to tour guides wax poetic about fertile soil, deep apricot flavor, and impeccable wines. I’d really like to get my hands on some of that wine. It might ease the pain of all these bones stacked together.

On this sunny day, someone actually bothers to stroll up the stairs toward the cemetery. Usually we do not get many visitors up here save for a few locals who grew up here, and I am confident they also hate hearing the apricot’s virtues extolled almost daily. My eyes follow the woman walking quietly, reverently through the cemetery.

Ours is small compared to other cities in Europe. The cemetery dates to the 1300s where the old church stood. A tower remains, as does this catacomb that you’d miss if you’re not looking for it. Surely I think this woman will be scared away by a pile of bones, but she is approaching.

Rarely does someone approach I have no idea what to do with myself. Rattling would surely send her running. I mean, I think it would anyway? A pile of bones rattling around in the middle of nowhere? That seems like a hard pass for most people. The woman is getting closer, so I choose stillness. Nobody comes this close to the cage. In fact, most people walk right by it.

Most tourists stand and gawk at the remains of the tower where Richard the Lionheart was held during the Crusades. I get it. It’s a neat part of our town, and the ransom paid for his release sure didn’t hurt Austria. But among the bones surrounding me are other forgotten soldiers and sons who fought (or retreated) during those scary, dark times. My body is among them. I don’t know everyone’s story, but mine is far from being the martyr I dreamt about.

I was caught up in a battle here during Napoleon’s right. It was an epic sight to see scores of French, Austrian, and Russian troops descending on our small riverside town. This was it. My chance to be a martyr even though I was too young to officially join the fray. That didn’t stop me. I had big dreams, after all. I donned the heaviest jacket I could, thinking it would protect me from these heavily armed and armored troops. I sprinted out of our farmhouse before my mom could stop me, and I ran straight for the fight.

I was killed mere minutes later when a stampeding horse kicked up a rock that hit me in the head. I dropped immediately. It didn’t matter how I died, though. My body, with thousands of others, was thrown into the catacombs. Now, we are reduced to bones and top of bones. All without stories. No histories. No families or friends to visit us. Indeed, we are all seemingly forgotten behind these metal gates.

The woman is still approaching. She leans on the wall to take a cautious step down into the recess of our burial space. This is the point people usually leave, when they see the reality of war. Of what it means to be lost without a name, a story, a past. Barely even a present.

She takes a photo. She doesn’t flee. She kneels down for a closer look. I’m lucky - at least people can see my skull when they bother to get close enough. It almost feels like someone is looking right at me. Or through me. But for a brief moment, I feel seen. This woman talks with her friend in hushed tones. I want her to stay. To talk to me, but before I know it, she’s standing up to leave.

I wonder what happened, and then I see Old Man Hank. At least that is what I call him. I don’t know who he is, but I do know he’s a local who comes in here every week to visit his family buried nearby. I can see him tend to the flower-covered gravesite given my vantage point. I wonder what it’s like to have someone care for you like that. To make sure even in death, you know your life mattered.

That’s why I thought I wanted to be a martyr. People would talk about me forever. I’d be part of history. Instead, I am lost to it.

Neatness in chaos

Rows of veteran gravestones.

I never knew why my parents named me Cleveland. We weren’t even from Ohio. Hell, maybe that’s where I was conceived, but I never asked. Never wanted to.

Much like the city whose name I bear, my life has been constant motion. Kinetic forces crashing into one another. Resting here in neat lines and rows that all look the same from every angle is the most peace I’ve had. And it’s driving me fucking insane. I miss the noise, the motion, the push and pull.

I remember when the draft notice came in the mail. My mother wept. My father sat me down at the table, giving me a speech about duty, sacrifice, and patriotism. I was still a kid. What the hell did I know about those things? I was just trying to score dates and make out under the bleachers. I thought I had more time to grow up. That draft notice was the beginning of the end of quiet for me. It was the start of chaos that gripped my life since being sent into combat when I was barely learning who I was.

Nothing like crawling through tunnels to turn you into a man. I was hoping I would get taller, but I never did. Kids would call me shrimp and short stack. Even in Vietnam, my height and frame put me in a perfect position to serve as a Tunnel Rat. I was short yet had some muscle but more importantly for this mission, I had brains. I needed to be fast thinking and skilled in hand-to-hand combat. The latter was tough, given every time I tried to punch a bully I ended up basically bouncing off. That made the situation worse. Which is why I was sure I would never be drafted. I was too small. Too wiry. Too little. Too late.

Once I came home, I never liked talking about my experiences underground. Hell, I never talked much about the experiences I had over there above ground. I made sure to travel each year to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. when it opened. I would run my hand along the names of my fallen brothers. We grew up together even if we never got to grow old together.

My life back stateside changed. I met and married Matilda, who gave me four beautiful children. Beautiful children who wrought chaos wherever we went. One was always running around. Another would be screaming as if we hadn’t fed her in months. Another would sit blissfully coloring watching the madness ensue. A fourth was usually a combination of whatever brother or sister caught their attention. Matilda and I were grossly outnumbered. Sometimes I yearned for the tunnels. At least I was trained for that combat. Parenting is a whole other level of battle. I still have physical scars from it.

We also never lived in Cleveland. I settled in Florida, preferring as much open space as I could find. We lived in Cape Canaveral, as I took a job with NASA upon my return home. I wasn’t an engineer, but I did play a hand in many space shuttle missions doing public affairs work. I contacted reporters. I told the astronauts’ stories. I mourned as Challenger blew up. Chaos reigned during my NASA career, but at least Matilda and I could escape to the beach to find some grounding.

My place of rest allows me to hear the ocean if it’s quiet. I am here surrounded by other veterans in these neat rows and columns and lines. Sometimes I wish I had been an engineer so I could figure out how the math of our headstones works. But other times, I don’t need to figure out the chaos. I realized much too late that sometimes it is okay to let things be calm and orderly without needing to know why.

I still regret never getting to see Cleveland. I can picture the Rust Belt city ebbing and flowing like my life. Incredible highs and indelible lows. I would have liked to traverse the city’s sidewalks to see if I could make sense of myself as Cleveland the man in Cleveland the place. Seeking order among the chaos. Here, buried among others who like me sacrificed for our country, I realize Cleveland the man is once again below ground not under my own volition.

At least this time, I don’t have to worry about being killed. The chaos has already done me in.

Just nuts

Squirrel figure in a container.

They have to be screwing with me.

That is the only possible explanation for why my allegedly loving family selected this grave marker for me. I don’t even like squirrels. In fact, I hate the outdoors, and now I am forced to spend eternity with this thing looking like it wants to eat my bones. Oh, and did I mention the background of this photo is a gigantic chicken coop with cackling, crowing, creeping chickens just meandering all day like I am not trying to get some damn rest?

It has to be a cruel joke. I am trying to decide what I did to my children to make them hate me like this. Sticking me in the ground with this “sculpture” and its beady eyes and loud face. And what is even on top of it? A water jug? An interpretive acorn?

I know I wasn’t always the best father. I missed a lot of their school plays and sports games growing up. I traveled a lot for work as an investment broker. My long hours and misery paid for their college educations, weddings, vacations, and grandchildren. Those sacrifices were worth it, or at least I assumed they were.

One time. I mentioned a damn squirrel one time when the kids were younger. It was a rare instance when I was home on a weekend, and we were all enjoying a picnic in the backyard. My wife Lynn and our two kids, Jennie the oldest at 6, and Benji the youngest at 4. To be clear, they were enjoying being outside. I was slathering my pale skin in sunscreen, pulling the brim of my hat over my face, and spraying on copious amounts of insect repellant.

Our dog was lolling around the yard scratching and sniffing, until he came to a stop at a tree. He barked his head practically off at the squirrel. The damn thing didn’t move. Just sat there staring at the German Shepherd as if it was a toy Poodle.

“I wish I had half the bravery of that squirrel,” I murmured. I’d been feeling burnt out and tired for a while, but I wasn’t brave enough to do anything about it. I wanted more days like this. Wanted more time with my wife and family. But I was too scared to do anything about it, and I had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 52. My job was trying to kill me, but luckily I survived. It was the exact wakeup call I needed. I quit my job after I was discharged and never looked back. We had enough savings that I could do what I finally wanted - go back and teach finance at a community college nearby. Sure, grading was intense, but at least I was home to see my young family grow.

Two decades later, I died from cancer. You know, those narratives about being a “warrior” and “fighting” are such bullshit. I lost my battle, but not without trying. Somehow it feels like I failed myself, my family, my world. Out of the blue, Benji told me one day during my treatment that I was far braver than the squirrel in the tree. I was shocked he remembered, being so young. But it was a rare moment with his dad, of course it was imprinted on his brain like it was on mine. “Thank you, son. I feel braver than the squirrel at this moment.”

I had my will all set up, but I never though I’d have to specify to not bury me in the ground among the bugs, and dirt, and cackling chickens. Those bastards must be laughing at my fate. I swore I wrote down that I wanted to be cremated and stuck on a shelf forever. I guess not. And now, not only am I stuck here in the ground listening to nature’s monsters, I also have to deal with this squirrel statue pressing on my face.

What can a guy do to catch a break? It’s just nuts.

Making a statement

Skull carving captured in a cemetery in Munich, Germany.

You can miss me if you’re not looking, but once you see me, I am hard to forget.

That’s how I felt when I was alive - a wallflower waiting to bloom with a little bit of attention. Even in death, my marker is low to the ground but so distinct that almost everyone who catches the sunlight glinting off it slows down. They all do some form of the same maneuver that goes something like this: stop, pause to wonder if it’s really a stone skull they’re seeing, walk closer, hike their pants (if they’re wearing long pants; women who smooth their skirts also fascinate me but for other reasons), crouch down with sigh, and touch the recesses in the carving. They trace the lines on my face. Sometimes they wonder aloud if this is my real skull. Of course not. Mine was never this beautiful.

I grew up and came of age in Munich when it was a bustling world city, full of culture, life, a vibrancy. Richard Wagner was my childhood friend. Yes, that same guy who went onto write some of the world’s best-known operas once skinned his knee so badly my mom cuddled him while he wept and bled. I sneered on, partly jealous, partly angry. Had my mother ever held me that closely while I cried?

As we got older, we immersed ourselves in the scientific and cultural revolution. Somehow I still faded into the background at parties. Women told me I was handsome. And once I let them close enough to see my “piercing blue eyes,” my “cheekbones leaning toward the Gods,” and my “impish smile,” they felt a need to touch. To feel. With my consent, they put their hands on my face. Traced my eyes. My bone structure. My lips. My chest. That’s what I mean when I say once someone got to know me, I was hard to forget.

And not just physically either. Sure, I was tall and striking. The first part was a fact. The second was subjective, but the attention I received from women and men led me to believe I was graced with a vessel people found captivating. Too bad I could never fully break free from my turmoiled insides. I never let myself believe I was anything other than a physical specimen without a soul to offer the world. I delved into my studies, became a successful scientist. I figured I had time to find a wife, but World War 1 broke out, and everything shattered.

Suddenly, nobody saw me again. I knew if the government found me, I was going to have to kill another man. That was not in my makeup. So, I hid. Tucked away from bunker to attic to abandoned building. I lost my family. My friends. I receded into darkness. After the war ended and the sanctions began, I died young of what I think was a broken heart. The man I was to become was stunted, cut off, ruined, bombed out like my childhood home. Like my childhood hopes and dreams. I died when I was 52, alone. With no hands on my face, or without tentacles into my soul.

I think that is why my friend Richard made sure my gravestone was a standout. Others in the cemetery near me do not have the same shine and luster. That is why the light catches my face. People stop. Stare. Rub. Caress. Feel. In death, I seem to have the connection I never got in life. Never felt I deserved. Even these many decades later, people walk away from me with their imprints on my heart. I never tire of the attention. I get to live out my extroverted fantasies in death. I get a connection I never experienced in life.

I am glad I am hard to forget. Every crack, crevice, and strain on the skull represents the elements and people rubbing, feeling, eroding, growing, changing me. I close my eyes and let the sensations sink in. I pretend to feel their every touch on my skin. I imagine them tracing my eyes. Cheeks. Lips. Hair. I want their attention. Crave it. It brings me out of my shell and into a life I only dreamt of having before my fears and men ripped it all away too soon.

In death, I am always who I wanted to be in life.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

I’ve heard every dumb joke you can imagine.

“I bet her head is in a basket somewhere.”

“She’s no longer head and shoulders above the rest.”

“She can’t even handle the truth. Get it? HANDle?”

The revelers inevitably cackle at their own wit, while I roll my eyes. Yes, I still have them up here. No, the thieves didn’t make off with them. They might have taken my statuary - my expensive marble - but I can assure you livings that I am intact. Well, as intact as can be for someone who has been dead longer than I was alive.

When the theft happened, I thought, “You have GOT to me kidding me!” As if I deserved such looting. But when you’re in a world beyond, all you have is time. Something I never got enough of in my physical being. Teenagers by the looks of them came in the middle of the night and were able to knock my head and arm clean off. Mother Nature had done most of the work already, so it was quite easy. Indeed, I was shocked it took someone that long.

You see, my marble was valuable. My husband was a well-known baker here in Tampa. People lined the streets each day to get their hands on his scones, muffins, and donuts. But it was his simple white bread that kept them coming back, kept them spending their Depression-era pennies on us. The bakery was the heart of the community, and the heart of my family. We weren’t wealthy, and like everyone suffered a great deal during the turbulent 1920s, but getting up every day and helping my husband knead and press and shape and form dough was an anchor for my soul.

Yet we suffered a great loss when our young daughter died of tuberculosis. Thankfully we had the means to bring her home and bury her in this family plot, that she didn’t end up in a mass burial site somewhere with only a generic memorial to her name. After she died, I went on auto-pilot. I know I had a good life, but the sun was dimmer, the bread dough no longer my life line. Most of my years were spent waiting for death, hoping I could see her again. It took 23 grueling years, but here we are together again as a family.

It was when we least expected it that someone came and ripped off my marble head and hands. Oddly, it reminded me of the way people tore into our family baked goods - a sly look of guilt, a quick rip, and an eye roll of elation when the crumbs melted on their tongues. Except this time the elation came when loading my head and arm into the back of a rusted pickup truck. I mean, please. Have some dignity as least.

So yes, you now see why my first thought was: you have GOT to be kidding me? I figured in death I would get some peace. I hoped being back with my family in spirit would make me whole. And it has. Sort of. But the theft is a reminder that life down below is turbulent. Unflinching. Unfair. It was like watching a part of my legacy be ripped away. The statue was a chance for me to be someone other than “the bread maker’s wife.” The gleaming marble made me feel important. Stand out. Matter.

Yet I could do nothing but watch. Sure, I mean, I am not stupid. I tried to shake the trees with a sudden wind. But these thieves were not deterred. I guess when a handsome pay date awaits, a pissed of spirit really isn’t that much of a deterrent. I should think that perhaps these people needed the money in some way, but I cannot assuage their guilt for them. Stealing my head and arm was abhorrent.

As if my daughter’s death didn’t rip enough away from me. Now these strangers take what is my legacy and store it in their truck like another discarded memory. I laugh because I followed their process. These thieves thought they would sell the marble to a builder, but Mother Nature had so degraded it with her acid rain that it was worth nothing.

I had to laugh because I could hear them say to the man, jaws slack with disbelieve: “You’ve got to be KIDDING me.” They put the emphasis elsewhere, moving the shock down the line.

And there is something poetic knowing even the thieves have no idea how thermodynamics and acid rain work. They should have consulted me. After all, I spent my entire life surrounded by heat. Be it in the kitchen. In Florida. In hell when my daughter died.

It was such a beautiful dumb joke I have added to me repertoire up here. My small family gathers, asks me to tell the story of the look on those thieves’ faces when elements foiled them. Puffing with pride, I start by saying: “Want to hear the dumbest joke of all?”

I Can Buy Myself Flowers

Gosh, that Miley is a hoot. Somehow her song has penetrated into the afterlife, and I think as the kids say these days: I’m here for it.

I died before I could find true love. I never thought that would be the case for the intrepid May Rose. Adults would call me a free spirt when I was a kid, running through our neighborhood never causing trouble but always looking for adventure. I guess I carried that freedom a bit too far.

My friend and I would joke that the day our divine mother was passing out partners, we were forgotten. Most days, I loved my freedom. Nobody telling me what to do, where to go, when to eat, how loudly I could laugh. (Like a hyena, for those wondering. Even a snort if someone was lucky.) I loved the life I built for myself because it was mine. For me. By me.

Yet some days, the depression would sink in. Don’t get me wrong, I had a rich life. I took myself on grand adventures. My favorite might have been cruising the Panama Canal and marveling at the grandeur of humanity while also acknowledging its brute force. When I died, I had in my will that a handful of my travel pictures should be buried with me, along with some childhood trinkets I kept into early age.

People wondered why I never had children either. “Who will take care of you when you’re old?” As if that is the purpose of bringing life into this world? I was never called to it. Never wanted it. Some days as I admire the grass around me, the sun and sky hovering around my spirit, I wonder if the solitary was always my destiny. My fate. My curse. My freedom.

I was born an only child, always asking my parents for an older brother. I learned later that isn’t how biology works. I got used to creating games to keep myself entertained while my parents worked. I retreated into writing. Into invisible friends because they were easier to maintain - and dismiss - than real-life ones. Academically inclined, I kept to myself in college and graduate school. It was the sacrifice that allowed for so many adventures.

And here I am alone even in death. Sure, the souls drift through the wind and keep a kinetic energy in the cemetery. But I don’t know them. Just as they don’t know me. Even in death I cannot break free of the need to be alone, to be with and for myself. Why? I still haven’t figured it out.

So, to say I am shocked someone has left me flowers is an understatement. Of course, it wasn’t someone I knew. It was a stranger passing through, thinking they were being clever by leaving roses on Rose. The buds are dry, wilting, losing color. Losing steam. But never losing their power. The simple gesture gave me hope that even for one second I am somebody. I am not forgotten. I matter.

Because while I bought myself plenty of flowers while alive, these are the first I have gotten in death. And even accidental flowers, I now realize, are better than no flowers at all.

Not Resting in Peace

My stomach twists like the leaves blowing around me. Something is off. I feel it in my gut.

Life here in Florida was never easy for me. Born to Freedmen, my path seemed destined for me. I had little say in the matter. No matter how hard I worked or tried or fought or kicked or begged or pleaded. There is only so much a little Black girl can do in Alachua County, Florida in a post-Civil War era.

You see, my parents were born slaves. And died allegedly as freed men. They never had a chance to learn to read or write, but did they love me something fierce. When the first school for Black children opened, they leapt at the chance to enroll me. I remember being so scared to walk through the doors. I gave myself anxiety for weeks beforehand, knowing I had no idea what school was, how to act, how to make friends.

I suppose one bit of relief was the school building had no doors. Or no windows. My smile spread as I realized one fear had been pushed aside by gross incompetence and uncaring. Without windows or doors, the place felt like a prison, yet my parents told me these walls were my escape path. A way out of the life they were born into and supposedly being freed from, but that would never be the case during my lifetime.

As I am here today, knotted with feelings of dread, I know something in the land of the living is unsettled. I can feel it in my bones. The air is thick, uneasy, swirling around the cemetery in a haze. All the injustice I experience as a Black woman living in one of the most segregated parts of Florida hasn’t left me even in death. You see, this county was steeped in racial unrest. Plantations dotted the soil, soil that my parents and grandparents tilled and made profitable for White elites.

I lived a rich life, having married a blacksmith here in the county. We had three healthy children who I got to see graduate from the nearby University of Florida. Slave blood runs through them, yet they are living dreams we could not even imagine. I watched from above as they fought for civil rights. I see my beautiful grandbabies marching in the streets after police brutality. My family, burning down a legacy that still haunts us.

I know things are unsettled because I see it in the facies of my grandbabies when they come visit me. Lines twist and furrow along their brows. I don’t know all the details, as they don’t share them. But I can see the worry, the concern. They want peace for me as badly as I want it for myself. I never knew a life of peace, and I damn sure don’t want a distressing death.

The other ancestors around me feel it as well. Our spirits swirl with the wind, trying to seek purchase on something stable. Something settled. We all float around waiting, wishing, willing. I pick on up tidbits from other visiting family. A fight about who owns this land. Who controls the grass, the stones. They’re fighting over who owns me even in death. So much for being freed men.

Feeling the Rays

When I was 8 years old in Munich, Germany in 1948, I saw sun regularly. I had been seeing it for years, in fact, but until after the War, I had no idea just how bright and buoyant it could be. While my memories are hazy, I do remember being 4 years old in 1944 and running around the streets in our bombed-out neighborhood trying to find some fun in literal and figurative dark times.

The sun, like much of the world, was covered in haze. Bombs filled the skies with dust and the cemeteries with people. My blond hair always seemed to smell like smoke and have a tinge of grey. I have to dig deep into the recesses of my mind to remember if we even saw the sun that year in its full glory. Air raids killed my friends down the street. Children were left orphaned. We hid in basements and bomb shelters at the constant shelling. While much of the city died, we somehow survived.

I had no idea how bright the sun actually was until we moved to South Dakota when I was 10. We escaped Germany one evening with other families from our neighborhood. I packed my meager belongings - two shirts, a book on astronomy, a torn pair of black pants, two pairs of underwear, and one pair of once-white sneakers. I know which of these things I treasured most. How we ended up in South Dakota after arriving to Ellis Island I do not recall. Years later my mother told me she wanted to be as far away from the coastline as possible, and when the rickety car we borrowed from friends already in the states died, we stayed where it landed.

What I can fondly remember was the sun. Sunshine reflecting off the blankets of snow gave the landscape of our family farm and ethereal dimension. One side of our farm was soybeans, while a small patch on the other grew massive sunflowers. When the skies went overcast, I trotted along to the sunflower patch, closed by eyes and conjured the glow, the smiles, the warmth. During winter, rays cast long shadows from the trees and began to melt the piles of white fluff. I would eagerly run outside in my jacket and gloves to roll around, feel the dualities of hot and cold. Life and death.

The sun became such a powerful force for me I grew up to be a solar physicist. In Germany, I never knew such a job existed. Really, our only job then was live. I went to university like many others here, and stumbled upon a professor teaching this intriguing topic. That was the day my life changed. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted to do when I grew up. Back in Munich, us kids were never asked that question because it was never a given we would make it that far. Parents didn’t want to get their hopes up or ours, so dreaming was a silly game we never played. Daydreaming meant you might miss a bomb raining down on you.

That day as a freshman in basic physics, my professor touched on studying the sun. Heliophysics he called it. I dove into all the books I could read, and made the sun my profession as a researcher myself with NASA. I completed my PhD with this same professor, and she changed my entire life’s trajectory. I had no idea was NASA was until she connected me with an internship my senior year, and I stayed with the agency throughout my doctoral studies.

Now, I could see the sun, learn its secrets, and share some of my own. While my dissertation research was purely scientific, I did manage to sneak in an anecdote at the end about my childhood. One happy memory involves my sister and I after the War ended playing in our backyard, her now-radiant blonde hair matching mine, the dirt and dust mostly gone from our locks. We were running around as I imagined carefree children did when she fell onto her back. I panicked, but realized she was squealing in the grass, making dirt angels given this was June. Dirt angels are exactly like you imagine - moving your arms and legs back and forth to create an angel shape in the dirt just like the snow.

Her eyes were tightly shut and she was laughing. Laughing. Another sound I realized years later I missed as much as the bright sun. I flung myself down near her, not caring about my clothes or hair or state of mind. I closed my eyes tight and imagined us making dirt angels somewhere safer, quieter. When we moved to South Dakota, we took every chance we could to make snow angels (and even some dirt angels in the patches when our parents weren’t paying attention). Before I died, I made sure to pass along this tradition to all the family grandchildren. I want them making dirt and snow angels in the sun forever.

Eventually, cancer took me from my family, from the sun, from my sunshines. I specifically wanted to be buried back in Munich, as it was my home. The city was our origin story. Its demise gave me life. Gave us life. While I realize it was a logistical hassle to get me back home, I am forever grateful as I can still see around me places of triumph and sadness, glee and despair. For whatever this city is and does, it is always part of me. And now I always am a part of it, buried beneath its surface.

So on this day, I soak up the sun as it hits my gravestone. The ivy tangles rejoice as they have a force pushing them to grow. The plant doesn’t strangle me. Instead, it reminds me that the sun generates life. It generates death. The sun’s rays fill me with warmth and memories of a Munich past and present. The sun is still my life-giving force even in death. It conjures my memories, stirs my soul in heaven.