BREWTON—There are springtime flowers everywhere this morning for Father’s Day. The flowers hang on lamp posts, bridge rails, and they surround the welcome-to-town sign. You can smell them in the air and they make you feel sort of grateful to be here.
I love flowers. They do something to me. It’s hard to smell a flower without smiling.
The town itself is quiet today. It’s an average afternoon in a city of historic storefronts, mills, stone churches, and muddy trucks. The downtown is framed by railroad tracks that cut straight across a pretty mainstreet. There’s Belleville Avenue, with its Greek revival homes that photographers love to put onto postcards.
Today, I’m at Union Cemetery with my wife. We are visiting someone. She arranges a vase of pink Peruvian lilies for the grave of her father. I’m standing several hundred feet away, giving them space.
People need privacy at cemeteries. I’m a big believer in that. I’m a big believer in lots of things, but when it comes to grief, I believe in leaving people alone.
So
I walk the maze of headstones, reading names. There are stones for babies, elderly people, politicians, and various Alabamians dating back to 1879. I see a monument for a man who was lost at sea. Another for a woman who died from influenza. Flowers are everywhere. Roses, lilies, daisies, bright plasticized begonias.
There is a big variety in the stones, too. Simple markers and fancy ones. They are adorned with flags, flowers, potted plants, photographs, hankies, cowboy figurines, throw pillows, candles, or letters.
I have no kin in this cemetery, but I’m searching for my last name just the same. I always do this, I don’t know why. My wife says it’s morbid, but I’ve been looking for my name in graveyards since childhood.
I’ve done this everywhere from New York to South Texas. Among the places I’ve found my name were Portland, Little…