CEMETERY VISIT

As I visited the cemetery where most of my father's family is buried I had no trouble finding their graves.
It had been years since I had been there,in fact so long I can't remember why I was there before. All I could see in my memory was a big tree where these graves were. But I shouldn't have worried about finding them because as I walked up the steps into the cemetery I walked straight to them !!
As I looked at and read the tombstones I was overcome with emotion and couldn't fully understand why. I never knew any of these aunts and uncles or my grandmother or grandfather but I felt an empty ,achy heart when I thought how they must have lived and wished I would've known them. Many of them died at young ages,in fact my grandmother and grandfather witnessed the death of many of their children,what a horrible experience that would be to go through repeatedly.
Almost in tears I photographed all the stones, thinking about each one as I stood before it.This was one of the twins, my dad lived with him in Oklahoma for years,he was a lawyer.This is the other twin, he was a police chief in Buncombe County.
There is a story behind how the names are written on their stones. Actually their names were Williard Victor Pryor and William Cecil Pryor. Why the Williard was put on Cecil's stone no one living now knows and that is why there is just the W on Victor's stone.How painful it must have been to bury your 1 year old child !!I heard this uncles name often in stories my dad would tell,they were the younger brothers and were the closest for the period of Homer's short life.This is Homer's grave, one of his older sister's husband was a rock mason and layed this bed of rocks for him to lay in .I'm sure Aunt Winnie's husband did not expect to have to lay another rock bed only almost exactly 3 years later for his own beloved wife who died in childbirth with their first child. The little girl survived and lives today in West Virginia.This is the rock bed he made for her,I can only imagine all the tears that fell on these rocks as he lovingly smoothed each one.This is the stone that kept calling me back to it. I can't explain the strange pulling feeling I had when I stood before this grave. But it wasn't a scary feeling, it was a comforting almost peaceful feeling one that I didn't want to leave.
I have to go back to that cemetery and look around for more aunts that were buried with their husbands in other sections. I hope to get up there late this fall when the snakes go into hibernation as this is in a very poisonous snake filled area.
I still get a longing feeling when thinking about my deceased family, maybe because there is so few of us left in my generation.