The second day home we drove to Indiana for Aunt Mary Ann’s funeral. So much has happened since we’ve been gone, so much has happened since we returned. Sadness and grief, yes, but also the healing salve of family. Our own three girls together again for the first time in five months. Giggles from the backseat on the nine-hour drive home yesterday, just like the old days.

We’ve seen many cemeteries in the last three weeks, most recently the bucolic Crown Hill in downtown Indianapolis. The photo above is from the Jewish Cemetery in Prague. Crowded in death as they were (in the ghetto) in life, these people clung to each other, to learning and to their own good names. Some of the graves here are 500 years old, said the audio tour guide, but if you know what to look for, you can read this graveyard like a book. A book of stones.