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05/31/2005 Entry: "Unnamed Baby Grave, Rockport ME"

Let me tell you a little about my weekend. Friday nite: home. Saturday day: work at the office. Saturday afternoon/evening, I watched the kids so Susan could go to a scrapbooking party. Sunday: Regular Sunday offerings, with church and so on. I worked a little on the riparocks.com site that evening. Monday: My gig in Bangor canceled. I thought about going to get Jim on his return flight from Minnesota, but with the kids being so young, I wasn't sure how it would go. we thought we'd hit the 9am parade in Tenants Harbor, but the boy's sleep schedule wouldn't permit it. So while they (and Susan) were taking a morning nap, Julia and I went cemetery exploring.

Back in 1940, the body of a baby boy was found in a quarry. No one knew who he was, or who he belonged to. The locals raised some money to give him a "proper" burial, with a stone that read "Unknown Baby Boy." I wanted to find that stone. I had a vague idea of where it was located, and I knew the name of the cemetery, so we set out.

We found a cemetery, right where I was told it was. But it wasn't the cemetery. It was a family cemetery. Carleton was the name, I think. So it wasn't the one we were looking for, but we looked around a little. In my macarbre little cemetery rating method (meaning: the creepier, the better), it measure pretty well. We left, I took a turn that I'd never been on. I ended up at the Rockport Fire Station. Knowing that firemen know the directions to everywhere, I told them I was looking for the Sea View Cemetery. He told me where it was, and I actually knew it--just not by name. He then asked if I was looking for something in particular. I told him I was looking for the unnamed baby grave. He told me right where to find it!

Here it is.

Julia and I looked around some more. She, in her almost seven year old mind, wasn't really grasping where we were. I could tell by some of the somewhat inappropriate things she was saying that she didn't realize we should be reverent in this place. She a little cropping of markers with flags around them, and she wanted to go look at them. So we did. As we looped out of that particular lane, we found a little memento on one stone. It was a slice of pine, sometimes used for making crafts, heavily shellaked. On it was a Jeep keychain. Written above the keychain, on the wood, someone had written "We miss you Daddy." As we walked out, the change in Julia's attitude was obvious. As we got close to the car, I asked her if she was ok. She looked up at me, and started to cry.

"Someone's Daddy died" she said.

Of course, that's all it took for me. Once I pulled myself back together, I explained how many of those graves were someone's Daddy. I'm hoping that little lesson will stay with her for a while. I know it will for me.