One of my favorite visits was at the church I grew up at in the rural Florida panhandle. One day the pastor took us on a hike through the woods (quite a distance from the old cemetery) to show us hidden deep in the forest a small grave-site. Apparently, long ago, a small wagon train was passing through the area and everyone got sick and passed away. They were all buried at that spot and the wagons broken down into fences surrounding the plots. 4 or 6 small enclosures. No engraved stones to mark the places. No one knows anything about them. Most people aren’t even aware the little grave-site exists.

I can spend hours walking up and down the rows in cemeteries, reading the epitaphs, comparing the dates, deciphering the symbols & iconography on the headstones. Imagining the heartbreak a mother felt at the row of 4 tiny stones that all say “baby Gellar”; markers for children, the eldery, those alone, and those surrounded by family. God was there in those lives as much as He is part of ours today and only He knows how many of those passed on I might one day meet. To me it’s awe-inspiring and also fertile ground for imagining their stories.