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Flores? You Must be Hispanic
Let me prove it to you
“The dead have only died when we forget them.”
If the four cemeteries in the Lehigh Valley I visited recently are any indication, a huge number of people have been forgotten. At least their final resting places have been. Granite tombstones bear witness to neglect; some have fallen, others lean precariously towards the earth, many are obscured by moss and lichen, and others are so worn by the elements that the chiseled names and dates have been worn away.
It is our fate to be forgotten. (Remember anything about your great-grandfather?) Cemeteries themselves are being forgotten, replaced by columbaria, by the scattering of ashes, tree planting, and by recycling the dead through human composting. Even our careful genealogical work is evanescent. How many of our descendants care?
In my case, I have outlived two older sisters and two younger brothers—I’m the proverbial “last man standing” in my immediate family. My ashes will be scattered on a tropical island. My tombstone will be the books I have written. They, too, will be forgotten.
