Then we walked around and visited Tom’s family and their tombstones. Tom knew every single person buried in that cemetery.

This reminded me of the time I went to a cemetery with my parents. They pointed out tombstones and remembered galavanting with people in the home town of Lancaster PA. They told story after story of nearly everyone in that cemetery. Dad said, “Remember Charlie?” and went on to talk about the experiences they had with that person.

It was like walking in a different time zone. It was the first time I felt like my parents in that cemetery so many years ago.

For some reason, we could not find cousin Gregory. And then we realized we had parked in a lot of people and we had to leave.

The funeral was in Littlestown Pa, where my husband grew up. “The town that time forgot,” is how our kids describe it. Yet that’s what it’s like in a cemetery, too. Time does not exist in those places. You are transported to another dimension.

I realized today that Tom’s dad passed a mere seven months after my dad, on July 7, 2001. I knew it at the time, then forgot. Seeing those dates inscribed on stone helped me remember.