While visiting the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery I first noticed how big it is. Having driven past it before I never really appreciated its size. Our class was lucky because it was absolutely perfect weather for being outside. It was nice to take the time to walk around the cemetery and to think about the people that are buried there.

We saw graves that were marked with Confederate flags, a mason sign and one marked as a firefighter. While there were many that were named there were even more that were unmarked. Some of them were really small tombstones with nothing on them, while another pair was marked mother and father.

         

One tombstone really struck me because of the message it bore: “to live in the hearts of those who loved us is not to die”. This idea of immortality through memory is one that writers, artists and poets use as the ultimate form of love.

Seeing that also reminded me of the unmarked graves. They may have no one that remembers them, or that their loved ones never knew where they were buried. This caused me to spend more time looking at the smalls for the rest of my time because the fancy and elaborate ones are already remembered, so I spent my time thinking about the forgotten. 

-Charlotte MacDonald