We are living cemeteries

We’re living cemeteries.  We’re full of dead people, and their stories live on in our bodies.

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The cemetery that I’m walking in holds my Quaker ancestors, who came over in the early 1700s to escape persecution and find some respite in William Penn’s “Holy Experiment.”

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I’m the result of a myriad of my ancestor’s choices that all came together to make me.  As long as I’m alive, they’ll never die.  And as long as my kids and relatives are alive, my choices — good and bad — will be carried in their bodies.

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The dead surround us, live in us, integrate themselves into our soil.  We are who we are, we live where we live, we speak the way we speak, our character is a reflection of theirs because we are them.  We are their hopes, their dreams and desires. —

We’re an individualistic society.  Everything is about individual awards, accomplishments, salaries, etc. “It’s mine and I earned it” or “this is who I am” type mantras fill our heads.  BUT WE ARE LIVING CEMETERIES.

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We are not entirely our own.  We’ve been carried here — at this moment — by the love, hard work, and heritage of our ancestors.  Their love lives in us.  Their work carries us.  We are theirs, and just like them, one day we’ll become a part of someone else’s future.  Our love will continue, and we will be the ones carrying our loved ones.