The Headstone On The Hill

This headstone lies on a hill. Though the pictures don't reflect the landscape with any topographical accuracy, a hill exists. This picture looks east, up a hill...

...and this picture looks west, down the hill.

Nearly in the middle lies a simple marker, a slab of granite which denotes a destination. As with anything in life, there's a story behind the headstone. As you can see, my father passed several years before my mother. After my father died it came time for us to make the proper arrangements. The town where the cemetery is located banned all raised headstones. My mother didn't like that, but what can you do?

The city, of course, changed policy some years later and allowed headstones in all shapes and sizes. Our family discussed changing the headstone several times, but we never did. My mother always complained that she didn't much like the headstone.

Things changed when my mother got sick. Suddenly, the headstone didn't seem so bad.

Today we clipped snowballs from our snowball bush and placed them at the headstone. As always, it was good to get together as a family. At the cemetery there are scattered among the many neighbors and friends resting temporarily on this hill, pioneers, frontiersmen (and women...), and even civil war veterans. As a child I feared the place. Now, I think it's beautiful.