Don't you love cemeteries?

Personally, I LOVE cemeteries! It started when I was young.
Call me strange but I just love to stroll through looking at the old gravestones, learning more about the local history, feeling the pain and joy of families recorded and felt in those very places, even if I have no one I know buried in the cemetery that I am visiting. Sometimes I just pull into a cemetery that I am passing by or one that I live by now, just to spend those contemplative moments about the cycle of life and the recording of family and community history.
While I was growing up, we made the annual Memorial Day trip to the cemetery where my maternal Great-Grandparents, later my younger brother and maternal Grandmother were buried. We cleared the growth around the stones, washed each stone, planted new flowers for the year and talked about those we had loved and now lost. I asked many questions and always felt at peace there, as the wind would blow through my hair and I would glance around at all of the other tombstones in the cemetery. Soon I was drawn to look at the surrounding stones- the veteran's flags, the German inscriptions, the symbols and tokens of love left by many a stone there. So much of life is there and we are closer to them there, I think!