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Baylee Warner

Mrs. Burr, Instructor

English 1010, Section 5

19 September 2017

What the Cemetery Holds

Shoes clicking on the asphalt, I steadily stroll my way through the Herriman Cemetery

with the cool crisp air licking at my cheeks. As I looked at the light blue sky with the sun starting

to set, I was reminded of one of the most memorable times that I went to a cemetery.

It was a sunny June day and my family and I stepped onto the dark green lawn of the

Veterans Cemetery on Redwood road. I look around me and notice that everyone was wrapped in

black. Some faces are solemn and others just calm. There is a loud bleating of a bagpipe slicing

through the silent air. I look at a casket cloaked in the American flag that holds my grandfather.

This was the one grandfather that I had ever known and loved dearly.

It is funny how death makes people think of life. That is what the entire day is about. My

Grandfather’s long, but not long enough life. My father gave a talk of the times that they would

go camping in a small town named Antimony, Utah in which my grandpa grew up. He was very

spiritual and loved his church the wholly for his entire life. He loved his family dearly and would

be missed by all that knew him.

Not only does death make people think of our loved one’s life but also of our own. I start

to ponder about my own life. I wonder how others will think of me, and the impact on the world

I had when it was my time to pass on. Will I be remembered as my grandfather, who was loved
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by every person that met him. Would no one come to my funeral? Or would it be somewhere in

between? Will I be known as a good doer, or someone who was a lackadaisical person and let the

sands of time slip through their fingers with nothing accomplished.

As I roam through the cemetery a quote stood out to me like a sore thumb. The headstone

said, “I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one of smiles when life is done.” It made me

think about how I want to be thought of throughout life and when I die. Throughout the cemetery

there was headstones decorated with relics that I could only assume reminded the deceased loved

ones of the deceased. Which is a comforting thought to me to be able to have loved ones that will

miss me while I am gone and will have things that will remind them of me. I also wonder what it

was that will make my loved ones think of me.

With head down I look at the headstones on the forest green grass. Each headstone with a

name, a birthdate, and a deathdate, with only a slash in between. A thought struck my mind. That

slash was the most important part of the headstone. That slash represented that person’s life. That

slash represented what that person did in their life. What were their accomplishments? What

were their likes and dislikes? Who were they in love with? Who could they not stand? What was

the most important thing to them in their life? What made others think of them while they were

away? There is something about that slash that does not seem right. It is weird to think that a life

full of stories and people is only represented by a little line stuck between a birth and death date.

I continue to ponder about this thought. If those people buried there were proud of their

“slash.” Did they make the impact on the world that they had wanted to leave when they were

still had their full life ahead of them? Did they have regrets? What would they change in their

life if they were given the chance? Each of these headstones signified a person who had their
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own story. It was so amazing to think of all the different possibilities these different lives held.

Each life containing many happy, sad, hopeful, tragic, and/or inspiring stories, all of which were

represented on a rock in that small plot of land.

As I continue through the cemetery I hear birds chirping, and the sound of children

penetrate through the line of trees. When one thinks of a cemetery usually it is usually thought

about as campfire stories with ghosts and zombies coming out of the grave. But as I walk

through the Herriman Cemetery there was nothing but peace and calm, while the birds are

chirping their happy songs with their young in the nest in the pines surrounding the meadow. I

can feel the love the people buried here had for their descendents, and they look forward to being

able to see them again one day.

When I reached the end of the center trail of the cemetery I met an island encompassed

by asphalt. On that island was the American, Utah, and Herriman flags with a statue on either

side of them. One of the plaques was a quote from George Washington that read, “The

willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified,

shall be directionally proportional to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars were treated and

appreciated by our nation.” As I thought about what that quote meant and why they would put it

in the cemetery, I realize that death is a huge part of how humans live life. When people see that

they will be honored, especially in how they are taken care of when they die, they are more

motivated to do honorable things for other people. For many people, they believe in an afterlife

and being punished or blessed in the next life for the way that they live thus making them want

to live the best they can so that they may be blessed throughout the rest of the eternities. So death

motivates people to better.

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