I stopped at Rest Haven Cemetery today to visit the graves of my father, grandmother, and uncle and marveled at the bright pop of ruby-red poinsettias all across the grounds. The plots in the American Legion section are overlaid with deep green wreaths, and here and there a tiny tinsel Christmas tree or garnet and gold bow flutters atop a headstone. Most of Rest Haven’s graves are decades old, but the families of the deceased continue to adorn them at special times of year.

I will always believe that, for as long as they could, families with loved ones buried in Vick and Odd Fellows trekked to those cemeteries for similar purposes. Lane Street Project doesn’t have the resources to decorate every grave marker at Odd Fellows and, of course, none remain at Vick. Still, we remember our dead this season and always.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2024.