Ghost in the Graveyard

Lost.  I like to drive into the countryside and get lost.  Maybe it is the challenge of finding my way home, or the adventure of finding something I have never seen before.  Either way, I like to get lost.

I was on a lost-adventure last week; exploring roads less traveled.  In Kansas, country roads can lead you down endless fields of wheat that wave as you drive past.  To get truly lost, you just need to be willing to go where the road leads you.  And sometimes, you get to see things that even time has forgotten.  

Homesteads built out of fieldstone and abandoned barns stand as lonely reminders of those who have been here and since moved on.  Not everyone moves on.  Some stay forever.  These are the scattered graveyards that can dot the countryside.

My road seemed to warn me its own life was ending.  Its upkeep was less, marred by potholes and crumbling asphalt.  Undergrowth was reaching from its banks, almost turning the two lane road into one.  I followed the center yellow line like the road's now flat line pulse to it's end;  appropriately at a graveyard.

The sun was beginning to set.  I should have started back, but the moment caught my eye.  My ghost was in the graveyard.  The game I played as a kid did not seem so fun looking at the headstones of people and families who had come before me.  I got out to explore.  

Headstones and monuments scattered the field.  There were a few large ones.  I assumed they were erected to mark the resting place of someone important.  Most were now slumped with the passing of time.  There was a whole family buried together with matching death dates.  What happened to them?  Some graves were marked by nothing more than a small plaque in the grass. Is that all the family could afford?

Leaving this quiet place, I noted the graveyard was dated 1882.  No one buried here had the chance to see a car.  What would they think of my horseless carriage?  Would it look like a ghost in the graveyard?  Eyes glowing pure white and an exhaust bark loud enough to…… I left before dusk would give us a chance to meet.