Walking to the Past

I took a long walk this morning to clear my head and get my lungs and feet moving again. I went up Southport to Graceland Cemetery. It wasn't open yet so I took the walk around the outside perimeter and by the time I made it back to the entrance I was able to walk in. I tipped my hat to the security guard sitting in his car. He gave me a hard glance. I was a new face and it was his job to be suspicious of newcomers. I've lived on Southport for almost thirty years, and most of that time I never realized I had ancestors buried at the end of our street. I know of two, and I've found one of those two graves. It's unmarked, and when I find the other I want to reach out to the far flung members of my family to try to get some stones placed there. I stood there and remembered my aunt telling me her memories of the funeral, and her standing there by the grave and seeing the El trains passing by just beyond the cemetery walls. And I thought, here I am some eighty years later, standing on the same spot, and I am connecting with the same thoughts and memories she had I now share and pass on, and we are now connected through all those years.