![\"sexton](\"\/mvp\/wp-content\/sexton-plotting-grave.jpg\")
<\/a>\nchurch sexton plotting the next grave<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The morning was hazy, foggy-like — very fitting, in a dreary, morbid sort of way. And yet…kinda pretty. Would it set my mood for the day?<\/p>\n
(And speaking of mood, what goes through a church sexton’s heart and mind while he plots out a new grave?)<\/p>\n
Well, a day or two later I again came rising above ground level and there it was, way out there, amidst the gravestones:<\/p>\n
<\/a>\nmound of dirt = grave dug<\/i><\/div>\n
And in the foreground, surrounded by naturally-bejeweled grass, a reminder of a day over thirty-five years ago, when Hopewell<\/a> hosted two different funerals in the same day.<\/p>\n On that day we buried my paternal grandfather Jacob Roth<\/a> (the double gravestone at the left) and Amy Yoder (middle gravestone). Their well-used bodies were put away there under the giant tree. And the double-gravestone on the right? It marks the graves of James Bucher<\/a> and his wife Fannie Bucher<\/a>.<\/p>\n People have been dying a long time!<\/p>\n Well, back to the present.<\/p>\n After much time, the sexton was mostly done with his laborious preparations.<\/p>\n Then the pre-established Event happened. (Mine is likely pre-ordained. As is yours.)<\/p>\n So…that afternoon, somebody else delivered something to the gravesite:<\/p>\n That made it even more definite — the time had come to use that grave.<\/p>\n I turned my back and walked away.<\/p>\n Eventually…distance…and surroundings…gave a different perspective…and added beauty:<\/p>\n But the beauty did nothing to change the reality of death.<\/p>\n And I looked at that scene and wondered that 90 years of living should have such an end.<\/p>\n All that living. And then it’s done.<\/p>\n And what’s left?<\/p>\n For all that living, what’s there to show for it?!<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, two days after the burial, as I stood and gazed down at the grave and pondered, I pulled out my cellphone:<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nready<\/i><\/div>\n<\/a>
\nframed by beauty<\/i><\/div>\n