Chapter 2

 

I didn't go home after leaving the museum. I stopped my car one block prematurely from the street where my house resided. I parked and placed the car keys in my jacket pocket and grabbed a notebook and pen from the backseat. Getting out, I surveyed the familiar scene in front of me.

Glenwood Park Cemetery.

Fulfilling my position as junior member on the historical society board, I had spent the past few months photographing, deciphering and cleaning tombstones, collecting names and dates, writing down epitaphs and describing where historical stones were placed throughout the grounds. This was all in order to update the records of the historical end of the cemetery and organize information for the genealogy society. Completing the improved records also meant matching up information of the people buried there with pictures of the stones. This called for sifting through a mountain of photographs, letters and newspapers that dated as far back as 1852 at the historical society office.

Perhaps it was a blessing that my house, the Merrill Homestead, and the cemetery were all located within four blocks of each other.

It was tedious work, but work that I enjoyed doing. I found myself to be alone in these sentiments. The only other person I thought might be remotely interested was Josh and he even went with me on one occasion to photograph headstones. I gave him a small section to cover, but what I got back was a photo-documentary of the park's squirrels.

There were only a handful of stones I had left to decipher, and it was probably a lost cause. The stones looked more like gravel than monuments.

It was early evening; the sun was a rusty orange. No one, not even insane headstone-documenting characters such as myself, were allowed in the cemetery after dark. So, I hurried to get to work.

I began where I always did. A flat rectangular marking resting in the shade of a cottonwood tree with the faded letters:

 

JAMES

19 yrs. 10 Mo. 24 d.

 

"Hello, James."

I walked past, anticipating on writing the names and dates in the oldest part of the cemetery. Most of the engravings had been so worn with time that deciphering two or three could take the few hours I had.

I found the bend in the narrow brick path and set through the grass to a small grouping of graves. I tried to concentrate on the crumbling stone in front of my face, but after only making out one character that might have been an "A" or "L" or about 24 other possibilities, I brushed water off my notebook and strolled back to where I ended up every night.

"JAMES." The stone was in the same place it had been for likely 150 years.

The files of some people buried in Glenwood would be considered short novels, but not James’s. The only records the cemetery had on James was just that; "JAMES − 19 years, 10 months and 24 days old."

I reached out and pressed my fingertips to the cool stone. It was believed by the historical society that James was the first person to be buried on the land, due to the lack of information about him. I started thinking about Stonehenge and chairs again. Someone had put the stone there for James long ago, around 1857 or 1858. And now this spot, this ground, was forever frozen in 1857. Headstones, I thought, were a lot like photographs. They were both used to remember a person and they both held a moment in time forever. A headstone is more tangible than a photograph, but the person is equally out of reach.

Do you think James could have left me one photograph? Nope, he left me with 19 years, 10 months and 24 days.

I don't know why I was so fascinated with James. There were far more interesting stones – people from the Civil War, statues and mausoleums that were pieces of art more than gravestones – markers that listed more achievements and details of a life than "James, 19 years 10 months 24 days."

I stared down at the crudely chiseled letters in the stone. "Who were you, James?" I asked out loud, my voice breaking the hush of the settled cemetery.

Before I knew it, the sun had set into the West and the sky was becoming darker as each second passed. The early evening rainstorm had left the air chillier than it had been in a while. Shivering, I closed my empty notebook.

"Good night James," I said and turned to the uneven brick that led out of the graveyard.