One Bad Dude

"He has light blue eyes…."
"Oh"
"If I don't protect his eyes, he'll get cataracts at a young age…."
"Oh"

On the way to the grocery store today, the day before Memorial Day, we took a walk through the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, established in 185.6. The peace of the gravestones randomly scattered amongst the oaks was considerably marred by the presence of hundreds of motorcyclists roaring by on the country road on the way to some mayhem somewhere.

I was intrigued by the grandiose marble structure marking the final resting place of Sampson Wright and his wife Elizabeth. At its foot is a small gravestone with the legend, Davis Wright~a colored boy~age 12. They all died in 1864. Curious…

Another stone, that of Henry Mumford Taylor and his wife Annie Taylor was apparently placed under a tree. The tree grew around the headstone and cracked it off its base. A few years ago, the tree was struck by lightning and had to be cut down. It was decided to leave the broken stone in place as it had fallen, with part of the tree still wrapped around it.

There is a small memorial garden, which was planted with native California plants by Becky Montgomery and two other volunteers. Although she intended it to be a place where people who perhaps didn't have graves to visit, could place memorial plaques everything changed after September 11th. The terrorist attacks of September 11 happened just after the site was chosen.

After that, Ms Montgomery, a teacher. said, "we all just agreed that this garden will be our affirmation of life. This will be our way of showing we have faith in the future."