In the Fall of 2024, just one week after I was retired by my employer of 23 years, and as a birthday present to myself, I determined to use the newfound time to stay in shape and listen to a range of streaming books, thereby feeding body and mind. In solidarity, my daughter delivered a Fitbit, my wife set me up with a new pair of Skecher walking shoes, and I chose the track: the local cemetery.
In the previous decades, I had visited this place next to never as I juggled the demands of a full-time and one or two part-time jobs; duties to accommodate the challenges of my wife’s disabilities; and the raising of two children. Now, “retired” and wanting to improve my health while plotting my next life move, I trekked to Union Cemetery with phone in hand, a goal of three miles and a chapter from Jill Lepore’s Book of Ages, a biography of Ben Franklin’s sister, Jane. Little did I know that multiple levels of story would consume and confront me on these walks.
Quickly I became a fixture recognized by the cemetery crew who manicured the lawns and dug plots for the newcomers. Establishing a route also meant meeting fellow walkers and nodding with a crisp “Good morning,” only to be followed up by one or both of us endeavoring to avoid crossing paths again lest we be compelled to move to “Great weather for walking!” or some such empty-calorie drivel. That led me to explore all roads and paths—no problem for a lifelong taphophile, or lover of graveyards for their cultural, historic and artistic value.
As fall turned to winter, I bundled up in my determination to keep up the pace three or four times a week, mile after mile, book after book. The seriousness of listening to Sarah McBride’s “Tomorrow Will Be Different” pivoted to the frivolity of Kenan Thompson’s “When I Was Your Age” and “150 Glimpses of the Beatles.” I racked up mile after mile, three or four each visit, and developed a nasty callous. January was a return to Jill Lepore—who knew “The Secret Life of Wonder Woman” would fascinate so much? —and her “New York Burning.” Global warming’s grip on New England meant nearly no snow, so February was devoted to continued brisk walking and “What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service.” (Considering Trump 2.0 had just commenced, this was a welcome, momentary return to decency, however fictitious.)
I was six months out from being retired when a former staff member of mine invited me to lunch. After catching up with the status of a place where I’d spent 23 years, but a place now dead to me, she asked whether I’d considered walking, well, anywhere but a graveyard. “No,” I replied, explaining that the folks buried in Union Cemetery were far more familiar to me now than past colleagues. “The Mowrys, Aldriches, Ballous, Halliwells, etc. have stories to tell.” I surprised myself at the quick recall of names, but over the miles I’d paused at numerous stones to check dates, phrases, carvings, old and new. As an historian, I’d noted the many residents who’d served in the Civil and World Wars. Recently recovered from overgrown brush by rabidly devoted taphophiles was a section of the oldest residents, including an Aldrich who’d been born under King George III and died under George Washington. (He also earned a law degree and sired about a dozen kids.) Hugging the corner of one plot rested the remains of a young woman, Abigail, just eighteen when she perished in 1820. And to her side, a tiny stone, her daughter, gone a month later.
In late April I listened to the disturbing, very difficult “The Barn,” a contemporary account of the author’s discovery of the Mississippi barn where Emmitt Till was beaten before his eventual murder. The compelling narrative, as well as the demand that I return this bestseller I’d waited sixteen weeks to receive from the library, drew me to the cemetery where I could easily finish four miles. Happy to escape the fields of Mississippi, I was pleasantly surprised when “Lorne,” 29 hours of the life and career of SNL’s Lorne Michaels, fell into my queue with the stipulation that I complete it in seven days. Good weather, a good story, and a receding foot callous beckoned me to the boneyard. Done!
“Your brother is in the hospital,” my mother told me in early May. Tim had put off doctor’s visits for nagging back pain and now tests revealed cancer throughout his body. My older brother, Kevin, dropped everything and flew to Arizona to spend precious time with our middle brother. A week later I did the same, sitting outside with Tim for several days, talking about everything and nothing. Hospice had begun the day I flew in, and after three days my red eye flight beckoned. I shook hands with my brother, telling him, in obvious denial, that I hoped to see him again soon. He replied, “I hope so, too.” I pondered that final moment as I got my steps in at the Sky Harbor Airport, then during the overnight cross-country flight. Three days later he was gone.
Back at home and wanting to return to as much normalcy as one could, I was back at Union Cemetery. Walks now were more reflective. While walking a brisk pace, I wondered more about the human beings whose stones I passed. They had lived through tumultuous historic times, reveled in their families and communities, and suffered and died from illness easily preventable in today’s modern times. As I passed their resting places, they became more human to me than at previous visits. May turned to June, and I listened to “Three Roads Back,” a short account of how Emerson, Thoreau and William James had coped successfully with the loss of close ones in their lives. Having studied these men throughout graduate school and visited their graves and homes in Concord, Massachusetts, the narrative brought some comfort that I was not alone, not the first to have lost a loved one.
But the most therapeutic listen was to George Saunders’ “Lincoln in the Bardo,” a novel of magical realism that relates one night when Abraham Lincoln walked alone from the White House to visit his recently deceased son in a nearby cemetery. The novel gives voice to the many souls who themselves labor to move from death to the next place to finally be at rest. As I listened and walked, mile after mile, my mind drifted to these thousands of people and how they, too, were now a community of the afterlife here in Union Cemetery. And beyond. Like my brother.
Despite the punishing heat and humidity of July, I continue logging mile after mile, maintaining my pre-retirement weight, toning the body, and weighing my next phase of life. Forty-seven years of full- and part-time work ended abruptly ten months ago, leading me to pursue a new path of employment but also a new direction, a new purpose. Subconsciously, perhaps, I scrolled for books about a second act, of sorts, and found engaging a recent biography of Yoko Ono, Melinda Gates’ “The Next Day,” and, currently, Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land.” These days, I continue my visits to the cemetery, perspiring in mid-summer heat and nursing that nagging callous. Like the many people who have lived and gone before me, I persevere by walking on.
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