~and it would be a nice thing to look forward to~

From Kansas, a place I still call home~

This afternoon was a great time, the perfect time in fact, to take a trip to Laurel Cemetery near my hometown of Haven, Kansas.  How often I have gone there and walked amongst the graves of many dear friends from the "land of long ago, and far, far away".  Many of the grave markers that I came across belong to folks that were known to me throughout my childhood and growing up years as a small town, Kansas farm girl.  They were the people who helped to raise me up and to them all, I am beholden.

I actually came out twice this afternoon.  It was nice to look around and to find the peace that only a cemetery can offer someone.  Laurel's setting is a very pastoral one, surrounded by fields that grow wheat, hay, and milo.  It's just enough off of the beaten path to be fairly quiet, even though the traffic that flows along Highway 96 is only a stone's throw away from it all.

I love it there.

I cannot tell you how many times I have visited this old country burial ground.  Dozens upon dozens of them more than likely~  I don't know what it is about cemeteries, especially this one, that calls to me in a certain way. I was taught early on to show respect to the graves of those who had died.  I even learned the importance of cleaning off the graves and paying attention to the words inscribed upon the markers. There is a wealth of history there if you are willing to take the time to walk the rows of graves and read the final messages given on their behalf.  

I stopped to visit the graves of two young men from my childhood who gave up their lives in the jungles of Vietnam, only two weeks apart from one another in the summer of 1967.  Henry Fisher and Sergio Albert are two soldiers forever frozen in time as the young people they surely were.  I don't think there has been a time that I've gone there and not stopped by their graves. I was only twelve when they were killed in southeast Asia but I remember with sadness the time of their passing.  I am 61 years old now and they both would be nearly 70 years of age and beyond.  It's hard to imagine what might have been for them if not for a call to be a soldier in a war that was extremely unpopular.  They were called to serve their country and they didn't hesitate.

Yet they died.

I went back out the second time this afternoon to scout around for a place to choose for myself when my own time comes in the future.  I had originally planned to be buried elsewhere, as a matter of fact I had already purchased a plot in the little Quaker cemetery near the town of Halstead, Kansas.  Yet the more I have thought of it, the more I realize where I truly prefer to be and that is Laurel Cemetery.  

I am much closer to the end of my life than I am to the beginning.  I hope to have plenty of good days that remain ahead of me, yet I look at it realistically and acknowledge the fact that all of our days are surely numbered.  So when that time comes for me, I take a whole lot of solace knowing that is where I will be.  Maybe, just maybe, there shall be someone who cares enough for me to stop and visit my grave once in a while, to brush off the leaves and grass, and to say "hello". 

I believe that simple act would be a nice thing to look forward to.