Monday, August 26, 2019

See You Next Life

The park where I eat lunch most Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays is also a grave, a great beautiful memorial to thousands of Americans who died hundreds of years ago as prisoners on British ships during the Revolutionary War.

And like most gravesites, it is, far from being a spooky haunt for apparitions and ghouls, a quiet, lovely, slightly melancholy place: butterflies float above mildly unkempt lawns; children run laughing around the plaza under which lie the bones of those who died in pain and fear just off the shore, within sight of their homes; and just a few yards away, a woman coos and babbles over two babies she is entertaining on a blanket on the grass.

Katie asks me via text what I’m thinking about. I reply, “I was thinking about the two babies that are lying on a blanket, and wondering if in our next life we could figure out a way to be twins.”

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