Driving Among the Dead

My son is 16 and learning to drive. This is terrifying. Not only because he is a teenage boy who wants to get behind the wheel of a car - but because I am a control freak. I can barely handle when my wife (who is an excellent driver) takes the wheel. Yet, I have decided it's time to let go and help teach our son how to drive.

But I'm not totally ready to take him out on the real road. So, we've decided to try it out at Cedar Hill Cemetery. 270 acres of winding roads and very few pedestrians. It's ideal for learning to drive - very few living distractions. A historical landmark, a great place to learn actual history, too. So as I remind him to keep both hands on the wheel and come to complete stops, we're listening to the cell phone audio tour of the notable "residents" in the cemetery.

Most notable for this aspiring poet and English teacher, Wallace Stevens. And his line of - "Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires," seems so fitting in such a beautiful green park.

And then the ostentatious Ark of the Covenant-type stone fortress for J.P. Morgan nearly across the way from the subtle, under-stated one for Katherine Hepburn.

Despite their differences, or all of ours - we all end up in the same place. I've never liked the cliched notion that what matters is the dash between the dates. Because it seems so small, when our lives feel so big - at least when we are in the middle of them. But ultimately, it's how we remember each other that matters more than the dash.

During our drives we've encountered more than just stones. One night we saw over 15 deer before we lost count, 6 wild turkeys, and a few bunnies. But we've also seen those there to remember the ones marked by stones. Once we saw a party - two beach umbrellas, 3 picnic blankets, balloons, and a group. Once, two women picking weeds. Once, we met a man on an oxygen mask - complimenting the plastic skeleton on my antenna - showing off his on his dashboard. And my hope now, is that each of these memories of driving - will be something my son remembers when I am buried underneath my own rock.