“The main purpose of life is: To have a job in whose purpose you can believe; To have friends whose immediate purposes you can trust; To have some spot on earth to which you can return as home; To be at the same time a citizen of a larger world.”
- James A. Michener
Graveyards fascinate me. I have spent most of my life engaged with intellectual treasure hunts, weaving a fabric of “who was” and “what ifs” in my mind about the humans who have proceeded us on our paths. Wherever I go, I wonder who else has gone before me, what the meaningful and deeper stories of their lives were, and if they are and were remembered by others in ways greater than superficial details.
Humans tend to celebrate lives with graves. This concept perplexes me; with so much more to know and understand about a person than their date of birth and year of death, it seems inadequate to affix a headstone to a body and not include a summary of investigative tales that serve to truly characterize the woman or the man. How can we know ourselves as a collective peoples unless we first reflect upon and understand who we, by heritage and custom, were?
Understanding historical documentation and research processes, I am continually compelled to find out more about the stories of the peoples in various locations. As a youngster, I was fascinated from toddler ages on with Ancient history. I have progressed from an interest in dynastic studies to kingships and now on to more “at home” groups of our predecessors: American cultural studies. Though simple families or more modern cultural movements may not be as grand and glorius as Pharoahs or Emperors’ lifetimes, the story dramas are still based upon the same equally human concepts, and therefore are still worth treasuring as marks of humanity.
As I hope to move forward into future research projects, I would like to include not only my writings but photo documentation of the grounds and grave markings of the individuals I study. As such, a tomb or group of stones may be a springboard fo rfurther study of an individual or particular collective group or conversely an individual’s records may be the start of a quest to find a grave. Either way, keeping marks for the permanent historical record in such a way that future researchers can benefit from my collected works will always be my goal—and joy.
