Tombstones

I like running in graveyards. That's what I did this morning. It was misty and a few wayward turns in the Avenues brought me to the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

I like knowing that my heart is the only heart beating for acres. It makes me acutely conscious of my existence. I'll become a tombstone one day, too. But for now, my bones are my own! The very stars course through my veins! Isn't that something?

I like reading tombstones. Even sad ones, like those of babies who didn't last 'til morning. I think of all the anguish their parents must have suffered, how awful it must've been to have something given and taken away so quickly--but look! The child's parents are right there! Under their own tombstones. Everyone's together again, finally. Isn't that something?

Down another lane, I pass a small hillside of tombstones all written in Japanese characters. Dozens of them--friends, relatives, neighbors, who knows?--all gathered together in their own little borough. Isn't that something? That even in death, we just want to be near each other?

Cemeteries and tombstones aren't monuments to death and loss, but to life and love. I think that's why I like them so much.