"In Loving Memory", the stone said. "ADELAIDE, Consort of M. Sellicson." Adelaide had died in 1848 at the age of 70. The monument was so new, though, that I looked again to double-check the date. Yep, 1848 was the year she died. Someone must have erected this monument to her recently. Someone who remembered. Someone who cared. Someone who wanted the world to remember that Adelaide lived and loved and had purpose.

I wondered about Adelaide and M. Did he acknowledge her during their life together, or was it only in death, over a century later, that she was called forth for recognition? Did she long for that reassurance when she was alive? Does it occur to her even now to think of it? Perhaps it is of no consequence over there, beyond the veil. I tossed the question to the wind. It matters not, Adelaide whispered. It matters not.

"Our Darling Little C.J., 1927-1937." This was a small gray stone which bore no surname. A yellow rose had been placed directly beneath it. C.J. was someone's child, a boy, probably, although it was difficult to say for sure. But C.J. had laughed and cried and romped and slept, the embodiment of someone's hopes and dreams, someone's connection with immortality, someone's pride and joy. I wondered if the grieving parents were the source of the rose. Could be. They might still be living. But sixty years later, who can say? Only the rose knows. "C.J., your mama loves you," I say to the wind. I know she does, C.J. tells me. I know.

"Clifton C. Spencer, Company F, 5th U.S. Infantry, Sp/Am War." The large granite slab was so old and weathered that the words were hard to read. "In loving memory from his incosolable [sic] parents, our hero and our beloved." Oh, no. "Alice," I called to my friend, "there's a typo on this tombstone." Alice walked over beside me. "Lost in Battle," she reads aloud, "He gave his life for his country."

I thought about brave Clifton, making the final sacrifice in the Spanish-American war at the tender age of 21, consigned to an untimely death and a typo on his tombstone. The editor in me wondered if his inconsolable parents ever realized that the single word they had chosen to describe their grief suddenly became meaningless as it was chiseled into the white stone. My heart ached for them. "They are with you by now, Clifton," I say. They never knew, Clifton reassures me. They never knew.

Death has walked closely behind me of late. It has claimed for its own a life that I thought I would always share. I have felt Death's warm breath on my forehead and wiped Death's tears from my cheeks. And so on Easter Sunday I paid homage to Death in Galveston's historic City Cemetery, walking among the graves, reading the names aloud to the Cosmos. There is no earthly monument for my friend, for he did not want one. But for one shining moment they all live again as my voice brings forth the sound of their name and their story, and their memory and essence again vibrate the universe which once enfolded them.