Perhaps my open heart surgery has something to do with it, but I am drawn to my daily walks in the town cemetery, it a beautiful place, well-tended, each stone and marker tells a different story, a testament to a different person, a different spirit, a different life and death. Coming near to death myself has been a reflective, intensely spiritual gift, it has deepened my sense of my life, my awe at the mystery of life. I was, they tell me, one walk away from possible death and in the cemetery one thinks of all these lives and deaths.

They encourage me, whisper to me. Rebecca, daughter of John and Miriam, Vivian, wife of Mr. Proudfit, Cynthia, gone but not forgotten. Stephen, killed at Antietam.

The spirits there seem gentle to me, I feel them holding my hand, walking with me, pulling me along.