When I was a little kid, my father had an antique globe in his home office. He would usually keep the door locked when he was working, as a pack of four little kids are more than distracting. Every so often, though, he would leave the door open and I would scamper in, find a comfortable spot to lie on the window sill, and slowly dance my finger across the globe. I would press on the Appalachian mountain ridges and trace the Mississippi River from my birthplace of Keokuk, Iowa, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. I would forge different paths from my grandparent’s home in Arizona to our current home in Chicago, ending in Maine, where I’ve always wanted to live. It was my way of connecting my past, present and future, which is exactly what a cemetery does. It is a place where the present preserves the past for the future. People visit it in search of something, even if all they find are answers that bring more questions. A cemetery is a place where people go in pursuit of things.
















