Have you ever been driving down the highway or through an unfamiliar town and see a beautiful row of trees ahead, and as you passed, you realized that those trees lived in a cemetery? 
Many times when going to look at a state champion tree, I find myself in a cemetery looking up in amazement at a champion tree that is a hundred or more years old.
When I see a tree growing peacefully in a cemetery, unthreatened by urban sprawl or deforestation, and protected peacefully from utility companies and loggers, the scene inspires many thoughts about those trees and what they mean.
The idea of the promise of life in the presence of so many who have left us behind resonates with me in a way that I can’t easily articulate.
