Here’s the puzzle I did during the day on Halloween. This is the third stop on my journey around the Wheel of the Year by myself. I don’t have any pictures from past celebrations because in the past I spent this holiday with my ancestors, as it is a time when the veil between the living and the dead thins and they are remembered. I visited cemeteries and did research. They feel closer to me this time of year.
Today, on All Souls’ Day, I am going to share a poem that resonates with me. My daughter found it posted on Facebook and shared it with me. It perfectly expresses my feelings about missing Tim these days.
Your heartbeat was my metronome
My compass
The rhythm I kept
The north I followed
Your arms were my home
My safety
My belonging
The one place I fit
Now I’m alone
I can’t keep time
I can’t find north
And there’s no way home
~ Racheal Bashaw
(No Way Home)
I live too far away from where our ancestors lie buried so I didn’t visit a cemetery. But I did something for Tim and created a memorial page for him on the Find a Grave website. Before he died we had discussed how we wanted to make sure we were buried near where we and our ancestors had lived most of our lives together, and I feel satisfied that I made that happen.
It is the beginning of a new project to add as many of our ancestors’ cemeteries to the database as I can. Since the public can see it without needing an invitation or a password it seems like it will be an excellent way to share the basics. Future descendants might stumble across it and be glad to know where to look for his grave. It won’t replace the pages for the ancestors I’ve posted on this blog; it will be an additional reference. And it’s impossible to know how long my blog will stay online after I’m gone.
And so another year has gone by.