The simple headstone summarized my father's life in a few ordinary phrases.

It was a grave like every other grave, a modest stone for a modest man. The words mean nothing to those who never knew him, and everything to us. They describe him as his legacy describes us. And so it is, to me, a beautiful grave.

Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast;
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow.
--Pope

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When my father died, none of us were prepared to eulogize. This time, we each prepared a speech. One by one, my father's children read aloud: his two daughters, his devoted son-in-law, Rick, and his adored grandchildren spoke their final goodbyes and paid him tribute. My brother-in-law went first. But when fast bound in the chill loam For that strange sleep, Who knows how wide its realm may be? Its depths, how deep? --John Richard Moreland

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