John Krull
WEIRTOWN, Indiana — The raindrops fall hard and fast on the headstones of the old cemetery.
I stand among the graves, feeling the water soak into my clothes and roll off the brim of my cap. It’s cold but refreshing.
I’ve come here to check on the freshly installed gravestones for my mother and brother. We have waited many months for the markers to arrive, their carving and transportation delayed by supply-line hiccups just now settling after the pandemic.
The stones look good, even in the quickening rain. The drops bounce off the stone, settling in the russet grass.
My headstones for my mother and younger brother are in what Mom called the Weir line, a long row of graves carrying the remains of my ancestors stretching back more than two centuries. The old stones at the far end have been worn by the years, the letters carved into them blurred by time and weather.
I linger, as I always do when I come here.
My mother began bringing me here when I was a child. Holding my hand when I was small, she would tell me that almost everyone buried here was related to me — tied to our family by blood or marriage.
She wanted me to understand, from the moment I first began to make my way in the world, that I was part of something bigger than myself. That I wasn’t alone in life.
That I never would be.
The lesson took.
Every time in my adult life I have had a major decision to make or a big challenge to face, I have come back here. I have stood among these gravestones, finding both strength and a sense of peace in the quiet.
The pattern began when I was in college.
I had chosen to attend my hometown school because my grandfather — my mother’s father — told me I should. In a long and painful phone conversation not long after my parents divorced, Grandpa said I should stay close to my family so I could provide stability for my mother and my younger siblings.
He was right, both for my family and for me.
We weathered those difficult years, in part because the college I attended — the school where I now teach — labored hard to provide me with challenging educational experiences around the many jobs I worked so we could hold on to our house. Professors who taught classes I needed rejuggled their schedules so I had time to hustle off to make money.
Those days of rushing from class to work and back to class from work instilled in me a sense of discipline that has served me well. But my college experience did more than that.
It reminded me that I am part of something larger than myself, and that what we owe to others is at least as great as what we expect from them.
That duty matters.
That fundamental principle has shaped every part of my life. It is at the heart of what I hope to pass on to my children. It has been at the heart of every career choice I have made. It is the overriding lesson I strive to teach my students.
I linger here now for the same reason I always have: to center myself again. To recall where my true path through life leads.
To remind myself, as my mother and my grandfather in their different ways taught me, that I am not alone in life.
And I never will be.
I stand in turn before the stones bearing the names of my brother, my grandparents and my mother. I mourn them all. I miss them all.
But I know they walk with me everywhere I go.
The rain comes harder, pounding down on the stones, grass and trees in this old cemetery in the hills where my ancestors lie. My cap is drenched. My pants are pasted to my legs.
I slosh back to my car. I sit behind the wheel for a long moment, taking deep breaths and thinking of all those who came before me — and all those who will follow. I ponder what they gave me, and what I owe them.
Then I drive away through the rain that falls upon both the living and the dead.
The same rain that will usher in the spring that inevitably follows even the bleakest of winters.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students, where this commentary originally appeared. The opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the views of Franklin College. Send comments to [email protected].
