Mount Hope, Part II

I had the opportunity to visit Mount Hope cemetery last week. An incredible sense of history and indebtedness passed over me as a looked at the graves of the men who built the first Chinatown in New England. Someone tells me that the flags by some of the graves represent the veterans buried here. Someone comes to place new flags by the graves every fourth of July.

Without constant care, the farthest of the three plots is still covered in shin-high grass and wildflowers. In conventional terms, this section would be unkempt. Cemeteries become overgrown when no one cuts the grass. Wildflowers replace florist-bought blossoms when no relatives come to replace withered flowers.

I think the wildflowers are beautiful. For these men, many of whom never had relatives to tend their graves, and those who were buried under false names (because they came as illegal immigrants) with no way for their families to find them, the wildflowers are proof that someone still sees them. If these men have no one to set flowers in front of their headstones, they can know that nature has not forgotten, and nature keeps fresh flowers there as long as the growing season allows.