Chapter 8July 1994
We strolled together through the endless rows of headstones, all standing erect in reverent silence all around us. The yew trees hunched across the footpath, gnarled branches reaching across to block out the early morning sun to form almost a tunnel for us to walk through. I had never liked accompanying my grandparents on their weekly visits to the cemetery as a child. Seeing the cracked and moss-laden tombstones that stood forgotten on every side, inscriptions weathered away; it haunted me, in a sense. Most of those who lay beneath our feet were now joined by the very same people that mourned their deaths once and so it would be, someday, for us, too. Visiting the cemetery forced me to reckon with my own mortality far too young. It forced me to realize, far too soon, t
