Gone and Done

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

While I’m sick — yeah, still kind of stewing. Better, but not well. I suppose it’s that whole “when you’re older you heal slower” but I’m kind of impatient — I’ve been preventing myself from doing what patently needs to be done around the house by watching endless youtube videos.

And somehow I settled into the channel of this guy who does “Faces of the Forgotten” (I first discovered him while looking up a curious sculpture in a cemetery in Iowa city.) Okay, full disclosure, my ADD spastic self watches him at 2x the speed, because otherwise I would get very impatient, but he tells interesting stories, in interesting places.

It’s frankly a little weird for me to watch it, because I’m the person who doesn’t even like to go to cemeteries. I know lots of people enjoy it, but me? Other than visiting grandma’s grave (just off the pic, above) I don’t really have any interest in wandering around cemeteries. Weirdly we did some on this visit, because my husband was fascinated by some of the imagery and sculptures in the old cemetery. (I don’t remember now when the decree came out to stop burying people IN the church, and the cemetery was started, but I think 18th century or thereabouts. Sometime in the twentieth it was decreed the sculptures had to be marble.)

My family has a crypt there, now, but we didn’t until mom bought one. We were buried in the “rented ground”. So, the way it worked is you were buried in the dirt, in an area reserved for it, and I think the rental period was 25 years? Which in Portugal in that region is enough to reduce you to bones. Then you could buy a small niche for the bones. And someone else would be buried in the plot you were buried in. Yes, this seemed perfectly normal to me, as a kid. My little cousin Dulce, my age, was buried in such “rental ground” when she died in the small pox epidemic that almost — but obviously not — killed me. For most of my childhood, we used to go and light candles at her grave for all Saints Day. Mind you, her grave was in the portion of rented ground marked off for children. I wonder if it still exists or is as large as it was.

ANYWAY, moving right along, as I said, my mom bought a crypt in dad’s name, but for bizarre family politics reasons, my grandmother (and grandfather) aren’t in it, nor in my grandfather’s ancient family crypt in the next village over, but in the crypt belonging to the family of my oldest uncle’s wife. Where my uncle is not, because he was buried with his new wife’s family. Anyway…. it doesn’t matter. Just that I know where she is, and I try to go there and leave flowers whenever I visit. I did not leave flowers this time, as there didn’t seem to be a vase I could use to put the flowers in, which is disturbing. In fact, all these elaborate monuments (as we wandered around) were devoid of vases for flowers, and few even had place for candles.

If I had to guess it’s the new generation of caretakers — mostly boomers and their children — not putting much stock in caring for the graves/making remembrance. I’m divided on this, as it was always mostly done for display and for the neighbors to see your piety. OTOH there was something consoling in visiting the graves, and knowing there was a place for you and you’d join them some day. There was…. You fit in when you came into the world, and there was a place for you when you went out.

And so I fell into watching this “Faces of the Forgotten” and what’s amazing, again, is how … ignored these graves are. No matter how famous or infamous, the graves are there, and the person is mostly quite forgotten. Worse here, in the park like cemeteries that don’t allow for headstones or photos on those. (I am told, though weirdly I’ve never been there, and am not sure how to find it, that my great grandmother’s picture, on my paternal grandfather’s family crypt, is a dead ringer for me. Um… perhaps vault is the name, not crypt, since ours is in ground and slightly raised, not the little chapels, which are for the very rich families indeed, and also old and no longer available.)

There is just a plaque with a name on the ground, and it gets mowed, and it is pretty much forgotten.

This slots in with thoughts I’ve had when doing stuff on this house. You see, it was last remodeled in the early eighties. And someone spent considerable money on the gardens, too. It then was sold around 2010 and there’s every chance the people who remodeled it are done and gone, and when I find their labels in the garden, or move some plant, I think of them, forgotten, under one of those plaques.

Of course, I’m sitting here, sick, watching these programs and thinking what’s the point even, if we’re all going to end up completely forgotten, as though we’d never been? Mind you, it’s only recently that I decided I don’t in fact want to be cremated. I want to claim my portion of the Earth — six by three — and be buried. I’ve told Dan that if I die before we have purchased a space, just ship me overseas to the family vault. Which prompted him to say it’s damn inconvenient, because then he’d have to be shipped overseas too, in time, and also, honestly, why bury an American abroad. Which I must admit feels wrong.

(Also think how inconvenient it would be for all of those who wish to piss on my grave to have to buy a ticket. And someone is bound to get offended if they go and piss on marble, anyway.)

But over these last few years I just started feeling overwhelmed with the futility of human life, and watching the videos more because I felt like someone should bear witness to the forgotten.

Perhaps I’m feeling better — or not — but yesterday something smacked me upside the head. I still visit grandma’s grave every time I go to Portugal. But more importantly, there is not a week that goes by when I don’t think of her multiple times. How she used to do something or other. What she’d say in some situation. How much something her great grandkids did or said would delight her.

In a very real sense, she is not gone, because I think of her as a living presence in my life. And through me she has influenced the grandkids, and perhaps even generations yet unborn.

This shifted the picture. Sure, the grave is a memento and it is often forgotten, particularly if the family line dies out.

But who the person was and what they did will reverberate through time till the end of the world.

There was a medieval belief you were held in limbo (or purgatory) until the last echo of your actions in the world was judged and your fate decided. When I heard it I thought that was silly. Might as well say we’ll all be judged at the end of time.

Look, it’s not always obvious. You won’t be remembered for what you want to be remembered. You can’t dictate it. But something you said or did, that affected others will keep reverberating to the end of time. Things you said that helped someone might have changed how they lived. Alternately, yes, your anger and pettiness also affected people.

But think on it, how many things you heard, not just from your ancestors, but friends’ stories of their parents and grandparents that influenced you no matter in how minor a way.

YOLO is supposed to be a nihilistic cry. You Only Live Once, so do whatever crazy thing comes to mind.

But–

YOLO. One day you and I and all we know will be ashes in the wind, or little plaques on the ground. Gone and done. But who we are and what we do, the things we believe, the things that animate us, the things that COUNT? Those go on forever in echoes and actions and reverberations.

Make it count.

47 thoughts on “Gone and Done”

  2. They’ve started – at least in the grave yard where my father’s family is buried – setting the stone plaques into concrete pads, so it’s slightly harder to lose them in the grass. Which is a nice change from just setting the gravestone in the sod, so that it eventually sinks and is lost.

    I sometimes wonder if it would be worth having my great-grandparents’ and great-aunt’s stones re-set. If nothing else it would mean that water doesn’t puddle in down-hill corner when I scrub the stones off every year.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I don’t know if it is the same person, but I used to watch videos by a guy who went around old cemeteries, found stones that had sunk or toppled or cracked. He’d fix whatever was needed, clean up the engraving, and reset them. The interesting thing was that he also dug around and found what he could of the person’s history – things like “John Wisenheimer came over here in 1807. He was a cooper in this town for more than 40 years, married Ethel, and they had six surviving children.” Stuff that was not on the gravestone, so he had to do a fair amount of research.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. And here I was earlier looking at various Ukraine “Saint Javelin” lady with missile shirts and morale patches.

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  4. It’s my position, worth what you paid, that graves while nice for those that think they mater, are irrelevant.

    Word fame.

    That which you have done that echoes on in the universe, your progeny, your accomplishments, the memory of you: That is your memorial, and that is what maters.

    I honestly don’t know where my grandmother is buried (I mean I know the city, but…) nor to I much care, because SHE is not there. Oh a chunk of rotted meat, or some bones are still there, but HER, the person does not exist there. She exists in my and my families memories. I just scattered my Aunt over the Black hills of SD near where she was born (a USAAF base that no longer exists) She lives on in three generations of progeny, in memories, and tales.

    Same for my dad, same for my brother by choice, and other brothers, and sisters, that I have lost.

    I can light a candle anywhere; where I am, they are, until I forget them, I die, or the world ends.

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    1. Myself, I’m going to be cremated and my ashes in a Miracle Whip jar. The wife insists that said jar is to be buried with her (she’s the Catholic).

      I go along with that plan, as I get a chuckle whenever I imagine a far future archaeologist writing a paper on that very strange grave good…

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      1. My aunt (technically now just the mother of my cousins as she is divorced from the uncle I am actually related to) is planning to be cremated and have her ashes added to a spot within her 12 year old daughter’s grave (traditional burial with casket and outer grave box). Which solves the problem of who gets the spot next to cousin, her or the ex (uncle). Technically divorcing out of the family loses the spot, except we all like aunt, and her daughter, who we are related to, is buried there. Aunt, but not uncle, currently wishes they hadn’t (before divorce) buried cousin there because only extended family can visit the grave site.

        In a hilarious note. A cousin (one of the multiple removed variety) is bouncing a step-mother (not died, yet) from her spot next to her dad since the woman has since remarried. What? We know nothing. Cousin is the gatekeeper for that grave spot. The woman’s current husband, or other survivors (none related) have no say.

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      3. Some years back, a older fellow who liked his Windsor visited and he got an ACME Delivery… of a couple smaller bottles of Windsor. He bought the 1.75L bottles for cost efficiency, and had something smaller for his travel kit. He got a 375 mL labelled, “In case of emergency – the big bottle is empty.]

        and a smaller 200 mL bottle labelled, “In case of dire emergency emergency – the small is empty too!” He suggested/joked he should make a little display of them. he never did. Upon his death, a small bottle (200 mL) was found, sans the label. As he would not buy that himself, it was figured to the be delivery item. His daughter was carefully distracted at the funeral/viewing… so his buddies could slip that bottle into the coffin with him. It is a bit strange to realize something of a gag gift has become grave goods.

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      4. Heck, I’m a woodworker and already built boxes to hold the ashes of the wife and me. With the things I’ve built for family, there’s the legacy.
        Does it matter though? We go wherever the spirit goes and our concern for worldly matters drops away.

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        2. The danger is that it has been used to express a heretical disbelief in the resurrection of the body.

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  5. Sarah, I can’t see you being buried in the family crypt in Portugal. I understand family is important, but you were born an American, it just took you ~27 years to get here. And if you are going to be buried, it should be in your native soil. Might be Colorado, might be where you are now, but this is your native soil.

    I only half-jokingly told my wife, after we bought this house 10 years ago (our first and only), that when I kick off, just bury me in the backyard under her garden. At least then I can serve a useful purpose fertilizing her tomatoes. Or bury me next to our first cat in the side yard and then put a garden over me. As much of a struggle we had actually getting into this place, it seems appropriate I should be planted in the backyard on this hillside. As crazy as this place drives me (as I’ve griped about on Discord a few times), the only way they’re getting me out of here is feet first.

    My hometown in Virginia has nothing for me anymore, I’ve gone back and tried and looked around. This two acres on the frontier of the suburban Charlotte shockwave is my home now.

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      2. Well. That’s the propo.

        Mrs Hoyt left behind her old gods and took ours. She married one of ours, and raised her sons in our creed. Because we were a Christian nation, it was possible. Might still be, God willing.

        I hope she will add her bones to our soil for the sake of her posterity. It’s a good beginning.

        I am in the same condition as her sons.

        It is true that Americans can be made.

        No one wants to admit how long it takes, or how hard the way.

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  6. In our travels, my wife, and I, like to stop at cemeteries. Two were remarkable. One was on the side of a highway, unfenced, and an obvious lack of a structured burials. Some of the graves were old, but many were fresh; a testament to those that just passed.

    Another cemetery was behind a barbed wire fence designating private property, but trespassing allowed to those visiting a cemetery without a fresh grave for over a century. The wrought iron fence was rusty and damaged in some locations. The old gate latch – long ago broken – was replaced with a piece of stainless wire, which was carefully looped after visitors left. The headstones were marked, except for the small ones of babies that died early. None of the grass was cut, but enough visitors beat down the tall grass while visiting.

    Were these people forgotten? Not to me. Visiting their final resting place led me to researching their history, and thinking about their hard life in the early American frontier. The land on which they farmed, and raised crops, is still in use. It’s a testament to the tenacious efforts of those that sought a piece of the United States, and escape from tyrannical governments.

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  7. ha! Wondering “whats the point”

    thats kinda the point, we are just specs. Little iddy biddy specks, pretty much insignificant, honestly, alive or dead, we are just tiny specs.

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  9. Technically through dad’s side of the family, there are 3, or more, historical graveyards for family to be buried in. Two on the west coast within a few miles (brothers established on each of their land claims). The other was established on the east coast not long after feet touched the colonies in 1645 (ish). The one my dad, grandparents, through greatx3 grands, are buried is 0.8 acres and a designated historical cemetery.

    It is not accessible to the general public because it is located on a private gated ranch. There is deeded legal road access for family, and for funerals (not a lot of parking, a single ranch road access, it is a hike from the county highway). Surprisingly not very full. In general it has been great-grandmother’s children who have maintained (VS all her siblings and cousins families) and actually been buried there.

    One new trend, while not family vaults being established, nor urn vaults (can’t because of the historical designation), but single graves for ashes, with or without a burial box (box the casket is put in). More extended family (beyond great-grandmother’s) is inquiring about burial there. Yes, the plot is free. But burial is not and except for cremated remains, requires a funeral home mortician burial (family used to be able to dig the hole. Not anymore.) Not cheap because the location is 60 miles from the nearest mortuary. Requires not only hole dug, but the internment box, in addition to the casket and headstone.

    https://oregontic.com/oregon-historical-markers/applegate-jesse-2/

    Graveyard clean up maintenance is performed 100% by family volunteers, the Saturday the weekend before Memorial Day weekend (usually 4th Saturday, but in 2025 it is the 3rd Saturday of a 5 Saturday month). One family member is paid for fuel for mowing during the year (was trained by uncle to take over. Has a landscape company in the county. This is a new development once some state grant funds were found.) Bigger maintenance is also done volunteer work parties as needed (headstone leveling, new fence). Materials paid for out of the grant money. Grant money also pays for gravel for road (immediate approach up hill, not entire ranch road) and parking area (small as it is), and the porta potty for May. Before grant money available, materials donated (enough farmers over the years, that materials “found”), or fund raising.

    Thus my response is:

    Isn’t everyone raised going to cemetery, at least annually?

    🙏

    Liked by 1 person

    1. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2468663626498786

      How the group communicates. I think the gate picture shows even if not a member of the private group. Gate was replaced about 30 years ago now, thanks to grant funds. Other additions are redwood benches, an (not locked, nothing to steal) storage shed, and a non-potable water storage (water from shed runoff) to water new Dogwood trees or add to preventive spray (moss prevention for headstones, poison oak killer …)

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    2. Find a grave dot com is an international crowd sourced resource. Generally the more information one has, the more likely to find someone.

      I typed in first and last name, and just the state (Oregon) for location of burial, and easily found Mr Applegate.

      There was a drawn picture, a picture of the gravestone, basic info such as birth & death dates, links to the entries for parents, spouse, siblings & children.

      Other times, almost nothing might be present.

      I have used quite a bit for my own family research.

      https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6349973/jesse-applegate

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      1. Yes. That is the one. Never needed “find a grave”. I’ve always known where Jesse Applegate, son Frank Applegate, granddaughter Anna McKirdy, are buried (with their spouses). All 4 of Anna McKirdy’s children and their spouses are buried there too (predominate branch of the family that has shown up year after year): McKirdy (two son’s though only one son had children), Farley, and Lovelace. Of their children and grandchildren (can only note grandma’s line): Two children of six (three still survive, oldest is buried with her husband at a veteran cemetery, but she was the one who got the Historical Pioneer Cemetery status established, as well as the basis of the annual interest payment grant); and unfortunately two grandchildren (of 13), one birth defects at age 13, the other a pedestrian murdered by hit and run (drunk but couldn’t be proven) driver outside her home. Surprising no infants or small children.

        Although it is something I could use to find Grandpa Dennis’s parents grave. Somewhere around Coburg. If I knew their full names. (Paternal grandfather died when I was 2.)

        What really needs to be done is an official (ish) map of the graves. But getting that done professionally is expensive. Opps, I mean Expensive. So tape, and compass, write down, turn information over to cousin who has a farming software that might be able to be utilized for mapping. Yes need to get down there and just get it done (sigh).

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    3. Isn’t everyone raised going to cemetery, at least annually?

      We were not.

      I do not know exactly where my grandparents were buried; AFAIK my parents never visited while I existed (maternal grandmother passed before I was born). Same for uncles and aunts. Somewhere outside of Chicago, I think.

      My parents are in Sacramento; aside from the interments, I’ve visited twice, I think, to clean up the plaque. My sister goes more often.

      I don’t know what I’ll do about my wife; I’ve been out once. The cemetery is well maintained, so it’s kind of a nice place. Both children are not in OR, so visiting the columbarium would be a special trip; when I’m in the ‘locker’ too, I expect no one will bother. (OTOH, moving a couple urns out of the columbarium here to someplace else is not a big deal, so what children may choose to do will be up to them.)

      I’m OK with that.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. My maternal grandparents were buried in the same grave plot, single headstone. Cremation (they died 3 weeks apart). Graveyard was owned by the Drain Eastern Star. They’d had two plots purchased there for decades. One plot was given back after they died. Now part of the Charles Applegate graveyard (one of Jesse’s brothers) that was donated to Yoncolla, or Douglas County (not sure which), since the Drain Eastern Star folded. Ownership transfer was, um, interesting (essentially abandonment, but it wasn’t abandoned, but anyone who cared didn’t have the legal authority … and round and round they went).

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  10. Your life isn’t futile.

    For one thing, you have two wonderful sons that you and Dan raised to being responsible adults. And just came back from watching (again) one of them start his own family, so odds are there are going to be more little Hoyts gracing this planet in a few months/years. That’s one of the primary legacies we leave behind, descendants.

    The second legacy you’re leaving the world, is your stories. Funny thing about stories, they last longer than material stuff. Sure, they get changed, added to, subtracted from, have the authors filed off, but they still endure long after the marble has crumbled to dust. You haven’t finished telling your stories; and the good Lord hasn’t finished telling yours.

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  12. (Also think how inconvenient it would be for all of those who wish to piss on my grave to have to buy a ticket. And someone is bound to get offended if they go and piss on marble, anyway.)

    I love my jiejie, always thinking of others.

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  13. We will be remembered … in the most vivid way possible … Rev. 20:11-21:8. The waiting is the hardest part.

    So long as I’m able, I remember and decorate 4 gravestones memorializing 17 people, and one more when I have extra materials. I don’t expect anyone will take over when I’m gone. Sad culture shift.

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  15. All things end as all things must

    The stars burn down and go to dust.

    And all men make shall be erased

    within these bounds of time and space.

    And so we bow our heads, and weep,

    but listen, child: this secret keep.

    They live, all that was bright and loved,

    forever, in the mind of God.

    You are not ephemeral. What you make that is beautiful and good shares the virtue of eternity.

    So go build up, build over, and build around.

    And take your children to tend the graves of the fallen, so they can resist the evil liars telling them that mankind’s history began last week. Tell them the stories of their past. Give them solid ground to stand them, and remind them to look up.

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  16. History is what is lived. Memories drive action. Action incites response. Response is more action.

    Our lives, from the very moment of conception, are drenched in historical significance stuffed into every living moment, so tightly packed it is hard to tell what is the root cause, as everything is linked together inextricably.

    I am a son of a soldier. A man who tinkered with computers before they were cool, served in Europe when the Russians were just waiting across the Fulda Gap to massacre them all, who toiled three jobs to keep his wife and children fed, who doubled the size and more of his tiny home with his own two hands. A son of a teacher who gave it up for children, who still volunteered to teach those who couldn’t pay to read, write, and cipher.

    My grandparents were soldiers, engineers, musicians, artists, draftsmen, writers, craftsmen, and tradesmen. I am descended from slaves, preachers, still more soldiers, a noble lady that saved a king, potato farmers, peasants, horse thieves, sailors, and adventurers when that was nearly a death sentence.

    My people have been kicked out of every home they hacked out of the dirt since the time of Trajan, if not before. We’ve left Germany, England, Ireland, the Atlantic Coast, and finally settled into the Appalachian hills and dared anyone to try and make us move. My line is a fractious, combative, stubborn, and pious one.

    There is something of every ancestor in what makes me, me. I mean this as no deterministic philosophy, but as the metals in the alloy of my personality. Things happen, but I am the one that is responsible for how I respond.

    The stories of my families’ past, told to me through out my life from before I could even comprehend language, are a part of that.

    As I grew up, at one point it would not have been a great exaggeration that I had been present at more gravesites than supermarkets. I lived next to the largest graveyard in town, by a longshot.

    Rich folk were buried there. The Mitchells, the Calders, the Woods, and so on, with Parthenon-like columnar edifices, stone benches, and tall markers. My folk were buried on a flat spot atop a hill in the woods. Stone markers, worn down to the nubbin by weather, stand there with a large section for the unnamed children, down the left side nearest the sun.

    The memories we cast are rarely, if ever, consciously applied. I remember men far better, stronger, and more upright than I as my kin. I remember cautions, lessons from those that were not so good, too. I remember the imperious man my grandfather was, holding court among the family as the patriarch, dispensing wisdom with few words. I remember my great grandfather, working in his field well into his 90s, steadily doing farm work with hand tools the entire time. And never complaining once, even though his bones were ground to powder, even when his heart and lungs began to fail him. On the day he died, he was still doing his exercises the doctor told him to in bed.

    The memories I cast will not be so bold as these, I believe. No children of mine walk this earth, and like as not ever will. Those I teach, those I interact with and have throughout these last forty plus years won’t find much of note in their memories of me, most like.

    That does not worry me. Should I pass quietly, without a ripple, not imposing upon another soul and without complaint I will be content. To that end I try not to complain or make pointless labor for others. Life can be difficult enough, without listening to an old man’s grumbles, pissing and moaning.

    But whether or not I wish it, my life, yours, all lives make an impact on those around them, those they interact with and touch. It is inevitable. And those ripples expand. It is an odd feeling, to hear your own words from the mouth of another sometimes, but it happens.

    May we all savor the memories of those who went before us, our beloved ancestors, kin, and fellows. May the marks we make on this world, big or small, be in such a way that the world is better for it. Freer, more meaningful, better, livelier, and with grace.

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  17. I am the last of my line.

    Married twice, but never able to have children. My blood relatives are far away and mostly gone. My adopted relatives are going fast. (I’m over fifty, after all.) The family home + acreage is apparently of little interest to the cousins and step-grandchildren. So I’ll fight to keep it for myself, but it may go to the bank once I’m gone.

    The one item that concerns me is my personal library. There are hundreds if not thousands of books, uncatalogued, dating back to before 1860 in the originals as well as reprints. I’d like to pass it on to someone who WON’T just heave it all into the recycling.

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  18. There is a lonely little Township Cemetery out in the flat country surrounded by farm fields. It was a sacred duty (of my father and perhaps grandfather) each Memorial Day to place a red flower and an American flag on the grave of my great-grandfather’s close friend which I have followed. As I learned a little of history of the other residents (about half the graves unmarked), they became my friends (although I had never met them [nearly all died before I was born and most have no descendants]. I put a single little (plastic) flower on each grave (or as near as I can to tell from my dad’s records) to show that someone still remembers them. Then just spend a bit of time in quiet contemplation. A warm spring breeze bringing the scent of lilacs with the song of flitting bluebirds. So peaceful.

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  19. (Also think how inconvenient it would be for all of those who wish to piss on my grave to have to buy a ticket. And someone is bound to get offended if they go and piss on marble, anyway.)

    Madam, a story I know I have told in your presence, whether physical or virtual: A Mason of my acquaintance was chatting with another Brother, some years back, and the other Brother mentioned he had been down to visit the grave of one of our notable and famous (and in fairness, infamous, to some around here) past grand masters. My friend asked how things looked, were they keeping the grave up, etc. The other Brother replied, “Oh, yes, it’s all very nice; the urinals were clean with new urinal cakes in them, and the dance floor was freshly waxed and polished.”

    Personally, I aspire to such a reputation. ;-)

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  21. Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
    From glen to glen, and down the mountainside,
    The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
    It’s you, it’s you must go, and I must bide.
    But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
    Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,
    Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
    Oh, Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so!

    But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
    If I am dead, as dead I well may be,
    Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,
    And kneel and say an Ave there for me;
    And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
    And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
    For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
    And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!

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  22. I live in Christchurch, NZ. One of the lingering effects of the earthquakes we had a decade or so ago is that many funeral monuments were damaged or toppled. The bigger and more expensive were the most damaged through the force of ground acceleration.

    As to the whole “why bother?” There is to agnostic me only one answer. That is the only meaning in life is that which you give it. Cosmically, it’s ridiculously pointless. But the meaning and purpose of my life does matter to me. As a musician I have entertained thousands of people, if only as being part of a truly epic night out, party or wedding. The artwork I sold to people who kindly took pity on my poor efforts might linger or collect dust till being thrown out by a later generation. Again, the meaning for me was in the creation.

    Few things in life have given me more joy than being part of my grandchildren’s lives. When they were small it was my privilege to be the nighttime storyteller. I told them so many outrageous lies, some of which they went to school and dutifully recounted as obvious facts, given the trusted source. Now, showing my apprentice builder grandson how to put up fence palings straight, gifting him my favourite chisels or teaching him how to put a proper edge on a knife will stay with both me and him for as long as we get. I hope with confidence, that he will pass on those joys and lessons to his grandkids one day.

    I see meaning and purpose everywhere I look.

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  23. I paid far more than they were physically worth for a set of mixing bowls like my Grandmother’s. I remember her making and bread and letting it rise in one of them. I do the same – and it reminds me to think about her every time I make bread, which is at least weekly.

    I have Mom’s actual stuff (and many gifts from over the years) to remind me of her. Not much (gifted, not hers) clothing survives, but the silverware will last indefinitely. I need to find a nephew (or grand-nephew) who wants it – dented knife handles and all. Who smacks hard-to-open jars with the silver silverware? My mother.

    As for me, I left a mark in Denver, but I do need to get out more, here.

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