Blooming in heaven

A cemetery is full of untold stories, life stories that are left to the imagination. Some are recent, others are from the distant past. Sometimes the imagined stories leave you with a sense of completion, but others tell of lives cut short, dreams never realized.

These gravestones are like that. The one above said, "To bud on earth to bloom in heaven." It's more than 50 years old, but there are still flowers marking the grave.

The one to the right is more than 100 years old—many lifetimes ago. A time when we know that lives were often shorter than now. But then, as now, 18 years and 5 months and 9 days is "Gone so soon."