On the forenoon today, in a restless mood, I hiked the easy distance south to Pioneer cemetery.
Upon my arrival, I trudged up the gravelly drive and came to Griswold Drive and with my trooper bag slung over my left shoulder I began inspecting the old whitewashed tombstones jutting out of the craggy ground.
After some time, I found myself sitting beneath the shiny shade of a copse of aspens, with dancing shadows beginning to form and the leaves beginning to turn flaxen and with a breezy autumnal wind blowing in from the south through the narrow canyon.
The easy flow of nearby Chicago Creek, a serpentine tributary of the mighty Clear Creek could be heard faintly as it sloshed over smooth round river rocks.
This final resting place for long-ago miners from Cornwall and Wales and pioneer farmers who crossed the Great Plains from New York, Illinois and Wisconsin is perched precipitously high atop a steep hillside up against the canyon wall just south of the old mining camp of Idaho Springs, Colorado.
The thin soil and rocky ground is blanketed with spindly tall grasses, burdock, black-eyed susans, goldenrod and coneflowers interspersed with assorted weeds sometimes completely submerging shorter tombstones.
Thoughts of my own mortality abounded as I gazed upon the scores of gravestones peppered over this meadow.
James Payne, a old fiddler and one time friend of George Andrew Jackson who first discovered gold here in Idaho Springs rests beneath these weeds as does R.B. Griswold a young man from New York who came west to make his fortune and accomplished his goal.
Soon, I too, will be resting beneath this meadow or another somewhere else while others in future years will ramble among these graves just as I did this morning and wonder who I was and how I came to be here.
When I am gone, nothing will cease. Life will go on as before. My passing will change nothing. Clear Creek will still be flowing high and fast and snow will still cover Mt. Evans. Nothing will come to naught just because I slipped into immortality.
School children will still walk home to their families after school and suppers will be still be cooking on the stove. Houses will still be built and roads paved. Soon, everyone who ever knew me will also die, and so it will be as if I never lived at all.
As I sat there under the trees I dozed off peacefully just for a bit.
What is that over yonder? A newly dug grave? A beautifully carved oak coffin was being lowered down with mourners watching and sobbing.
Who is being buried today? I asked the cemetery attendant. He says nothing, his eye gaze not meeting mine. So, I ambled over and to my startlement I looked into the open casket I saw that's it was me!
I knew this day would come but always resisted the idea when it popped into my head.
Waking from my short slumber, I came to the stark realization that one day soon I too will be lowered into the bosom of the earth. That day, the day I have always shrunk from, will finally come.
Then, let me walk with you hand in hand in the piney woods up ahead and tell you a story as I rest on this hill, this forgotten meadow high up in the mountains of old Colorado.
Back in "59" a baby boy was born. He once walked from Illinois to Colorado across the Great Plains not to find fortune but rather treasure in Heaven, a home and a good wife. Now, what more can be said?
BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 9, 2016- Friday
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