[Houshalter]

My mother is into local history. She would often take me to cemeteries and show me several generations of family members. She told me many stories about them, even though they are long since dead. She knew where all sorts of notable people were buried, and told me stories about them. The graves of the first settlers, a soldier who received the medal of honor in the civil war in the locomotive chase, to a tombstone that was carved out of a meteorite.

We spent time planting flowers and keeping the graves nice. Cemeteries are not empty places, there is always someone showing up to visit and mourn for the dead.

It's also not wasted land. Every cemetery I've been to was built on land no one wanted. Usually sandy hills that weren't farmable.

If and when she dies there is no way I will have her cremated. I hope my great grandchildren tell stories about her in a hundred years.