For whom the bell tolls

I an on holidays in a mountain-y town in Alberta. Today I decided to take a break from the others on the holiday and went for a long solitary walk.

I came across the town's graveyard and stopped to visit. When the sun is shining and a gentle breeze, graveyards are so peaceful and beautiful. I saw where a one day old had been buried and where two fifteen year olds were laid to rest. I saw the grave for a man who had been the town's first pharmacist and who had served in WW1 helping with first aid. As I walked among the graves, I wondered about the lives these people had lived and the famlies and friends they had left behind.

Near a war memorial was one of those plastic windmill flowers, spinning around and around. It seemed so symbollic to me, a guarantee that as long as the petals were turning, the deceased could never be forgotten.

(The groundskeeper disagreed with my theory though. He said more likely the windmill was just an impulse purchase from the dollar store.)

I continued on my walk and on the way back I saw the same groundskeeper chinking away at the ground infront of a double headstone. And as I watched him, I wondered about who had just passed away when this poem came to my mind:

"Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

And if I were left to rest in a graveyard where the sun shines and a light breeze blows a windmill around and around, it wouldn't be the worst thing I could imagine.