I went to a grave yard on Memorial day. There was a celebration going on, but I missed the whole thing as I was only there to pick up a friend (a live one). As I was waiting for him, I decided to look around.

I like looking at the older stones. It seems 100 years ago, people had such interesting names. I suppose it’s a morbid idea to go to a cemetery to pick names for children. But I wouldn’t put it past me.

I found one grave marked, “Dred Greef Widdon.” Dred Greef? What was happening in that family when he was born? That’s a terrible name! It reminded me of the “Not Loved,” “Not Wanted” children in Hosea.

I’m amazed at the stories a grave site will tell, just the name, sometimes an epitaph, flowers or abandonment. I think I would prefer to not have a gravesite or to have it unmarked.

I think I’ve mentioned before the slave yard I saw once in TN. There was a stone that read,
(her name)
She the Suns-
hine of our
house.
She was a second wife, with the information of the first wife engraved on the same stone, just above her name. All the stones in that yard had engravings with spelling mistakes and like this one, hyphenations out of place making it look to be read “Suns hinie.”

But when I consider the time and/or expense it took to engrave that epitaph for the second wife of a slave man . . . when I consider what it must take to be the “Sunshine” of a household that is in every way owned by another man, even down to the last baby, when I consider the losses they surely must have already experienced, I know her stone, and her epitaph are important, historically. Even if none of her descendents know of her, or what she did to be the sunshine of a slave household, at least I know she did it.

She is an encouragement for me.

Dred Greef is a warning.