I’ve been taking daily walks as I visit my daughter and her three children in the Midwest.

I don’t know where anything is here, and she lives on a very steep hilly street, so I make my way down her street to the cemetery for my walks.

I remember when I was in elementary school we took a field trip to an old cemetery.

We were given large pieces of paper, and we looked for the most interesting tombstone.

Once we found one, we’d take black chalk and make a rubbing of the engraving on the tombstone.

My active imagination tried to envision what it would be like to live 100 years ago…or more.

In high school, the cemetery was the stuff of urban legend. If you drove around the statue three times in a row, it would come to life and point at you.

I skipped that activity.

I am not spooked by cemeteries, but I don’t choose to go there at night.

During the day, the cemetery here is a peaceful place with wide cement drives throughout.

It’s moderately hilly, and I’ve chosen different paths each time I’ve gone there.

Most of the people I know talk of how they want to be cremated instead of buried. I understand that sentiment.

They don’t want the fuss and expense.

As I walk, I look at the names set in or above the ground. Once in a while, a monument will catch my eye.

The people who chose cemeteries must want to be remembered. Or maybe it’s their loved ones wanting a tangible place to go and visit them in memory.

I have little experience with cemeteries.

The first gravesite ceremony I went to was for the father of my son, killed suddenly in car accident when he was 20.

It was a grey, cold November day when he was laid to rest. The wind cut bitterly against my skin, peppering me with abrasive snow whipped up from the high desert mountain slope that would be his final resting place.

I didn’t return to that small family cemetery for a couple of years. When I did, it was warm and sunny, and the grass covered his grave. I lay on his gravesite, somehow trying to get closer. To remember.

I returned to that small cemetery after his mother died of breast cancer. I couldn’t go to the gravesite service because of a heavy snowfall, and I had to fly home the next day.

Instead, I came back during the warm days again, and once more felt a longing to see her.

March of this year was the next time I was at a cemetery. My beloved mother in law had passed away, and I was there moments after her death, through the funeral, and to the gravesite service. Again it was cold out, but it was the day before spring. I was moved by the fact we laid her to rest just as the earth began to awaken again with new life.

I think of those I have lost as I walk through the cemetery here. I wonder what I will do when my time comes.

I like the thought of having a final place of rest. Of being remembered. Of flowers brought, prayers sent. A peaceful, lovely place with trees.

We all face that decision one day.

Walking through the cemetery, I say names out loud of those buried there. How long has it been since someone said their name?

The wind carries their names off, and I walk home.