Introduction

­Many years ago I lived in a little town known as Thompsonville. It was actually a small mill area that is part of a bigger town called Enfield. The mills were long closed and the employee houses were now rentals. The streets were small and compact and there were churches, an old drugstore, pizza shops, etc. It was like the outskirts of a small city. Way out behind our town we could see the slow moving Connecticut River. My house was the last on a dead end at the very edge of town and was right next to a church cemetery. I love to walk and that cemetery was a place I often chose to stroll around to enjoy some peace and quiet. There was an area for sitting that had a statue of Jesus and I would sit and admire  the manicured landscaping, beautiful flowers and pastel colored ornamental trees. It was truly the only beautiful spot in Thompsonville.
Now, many years later I live in a picturesque town far from Thompsonville and when I came here 8 years ago the first thing I did was adopt a dog (sadly he's gone but I adopted another little dog) and began taking him for long walks at the town Green. Right alongside the Green is a cemetery that spans from a very old section to a modern new section.  I began to take notice of the artistic and sophisticated carvings on the modern stones and the crude, though striking, artwork on the very old stones. I started to realize that each stone told a story. The name of the deceased, the era in which they lived, if they were parents or siblings, if they had been married and even what they most enjoyed in life. There were depictions of sailboats, golfers, farms, birds, cats and dogs, even houses. Many stones had some sort of picture of the deceased or a religious icon. Things written in stone that made the person real and for a few  moments, as I stood there thinking about them, they were remembered. Even though I never met any of them in life, for a few seconds, in my mind they were alive again. So let's journey through some cemeteries together and enjoy the art and beauty and celebrate the lives that have been lived.