If not here, where?

Took a walk through a cemetery a few days back. There's something about it that's peaceful to me, and while that doesn't immediately make sense...it's just how I feel about it.

Took my camera with, intending to find the grave of the exiled prince that's buried in Libertyville.  I didn't find that in this cemetery, but I found myself looking at the old graves.  Some of the people were buried there in the 1860s.  What strikes me more than the big ornate obelisks and the perfectly carved angels are the graves that are almost covered up or nearly erased with age.  I've always been one to uncover what I can. I like to think of it as making sure someone reads their names.

I think it's the simple things that strike me the most sometimes. Like this. This is all that stone said. Father.
And in some respects, what else can you say when you lose someone that close to you? What's left?  And who is it for?  I was alone in the cemetery for a while but then someone came to lay down flowers at a grave. She just stood with her head lowered quietly after the flowers were placed. She knew the spot, and she knew what the person buried there had meant to her, and that was all that mattered.  Her and that space on that day, remembering.

I guess that's something that I wish I had sometimes. I don't have a place like that I can just go.  And sometimes I really wish that I did.  It's what makes me want to go to Fort Collins and spend a while. Whether you believe there's anything beyond bones there or not, it's more about remembering than anything else. Shared space and remembering.  I don't want to miss that shared space forever.