This spring, my parents, sister, son and I made a pilgrimage to the area around Flat Gap, in Johnson Co., eastern Kentucky, where my paternal ancesters moved around the time of the Revolutionary War. We met, for the 1st time, my grandmother's elderly cousin and her daughter, both of whom still live in the area, and who graciously acted as our guides.

In southern and central Appalachia, there is a long tradition of small family graveyards at the tops of the highest ridges on family farms. We spent a wonderful weekend climbing up the hollers to visit sites where our ancestors are buried, and I brought home some irises and bulbs planted on the graves of a great, great grandmother. Some of the graveyards we wanted most to visit were not accessible in the spring mud or because the climb was so steep and the woods so overgrown and dense with brush and greenbriar that my 85 year old father absolutely could not have made the climb, but would have been determined to come with us. We knew from postings to our family geneology website that the ones we didn't reach were hard, tricky and treacherous climbs for even people reasonably fit. (He is very crippled with arthritis and both worried us to death and astounded and delighted us with his determination as he climbed a number of steep hills. It cost him dearly physically, but the pleasure he had from visiting these places more than paid the price.)

Standing among the headstones on top of those hills, feeling the spring wind, gazing at the vistas and the valley floors, and watching the clouds scud accross the sky, dancing to the tune made by the sound of the bare tree limbs moving in the breeze, was a feeling I really can't describe.

The most moving headstones were those that were rough slabs of native rock, lovingly and completely unskillfully chiseled with mispelled names and misquoted bible verses.

Cousin Lexie is about 20 years younger than my grandmother. Her mother, and then she, have seen to it that the brush got cleared off of these small plots over many long years. I am grateful beyond words. She is in her 90's now, sharp of mind but with a walker. don't know what will happen to these hallowed old places when she is gone.

Having said that, it is also common in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, as old homeplaces get sold off and broken up, for the new owners to simply have the respect to see to it that the old bone orchards don't completely disappear under brush and greenbriar.