in the old burying ground

Even in midafternoon, the sunlight falls unevenly on the old burying ground, settling on a few of the gravestones, but leaving many more in shadow. Some of the gravestones have sunken so far into the ground that only the first line of writing is visible. Some have fallen over and some are so worn that the names and dates can no longer be made out. There are gravestones topped with winged skulls, with urns and willows, with spirals, with stars, with cherubs. There are smaller stones for babies and children and gravestones with double, or even triple, semi-circular crests, where the deaths of two or three family members -- usually children -- came close enough together that that they could share a single grave. Some of the carvings are elaborate and skillfully rendered; some are rough and hesitant, as though the carver wasn't sure how to hold the chisel or what he meant to write. Some inscriptions have a caret at the end of a line pointing to a letter inserted above, where someone miscalculated the available space and there wasn't enough time or money to start over.

Ammi Cutter has a tall, solid gravestone, flanked by those of two of his children and two of his wives. When he died, at the age of 62, he left "17 living children and 46 grandchildren." William Clark and his wife, Hannah Clark, both died young, but their 20-year-old son, John, died before either of his parents and lies buried between them. There's John Hill, who was "kill'd by a Cart," and Mary Russell, the fifth daughter of Joseph and Mary Russell, who died unmarried at 56, and David Robbins who died on October 24, 1736, "aged one day." Three deeply-cut faces, two in profile, and one, slightly cross-eyed, staring straight ahead, mark the grave of three brothers, William, Jonas, and Jonathan Adams, ages 7, 2, and 6 months, who all died on the same day in April 1792. What happened to them? Sickness? Fire? A long-ago murder? Did their parents feel sorrow or anger or resignation? The gravestone is silent. In the back, off to one side, is a gravestone inscribed "In memory of two twins of Mr. George and Mrs. Lydia Prentice." The twins, Zachariah and Rebecca, died in November 1782 and lined up beside them are their siblings, Sarah, John, and Benjamin, all of whom were buried before reaching their first birthday.

I work my way from one crooked row to the next, examining the names and dates, occasionally bending down to brush off dirt or pull up grass. The gravestones serve their purpose and, more than 200 years later, a stranger walking among them can read the stories etched into the thin grey slate. You are not forgotten, I tell them. Though you are dead and and everyone who mourned for you is dead and the man who carved your epitaph is dead, I know that once you lived and breathed. I know your name. You are not forgotten. It's all I can do for them.