visiting graves to say thank you.

What else can you do to pay homage to those who have transformed your life ?And so it was on a startling blue fall day that we traipsed around the cemetery in Concord looking for Thoreau.Why him? Reading what he wrote and seeing the way he tried to live gave comfort to my nature loving introverted soul."I love to be alone....books are the treasured wealth of the world..we need the tonic of wildness...".He spoke my language and he is beloved.

I am not the only one who loves Henry.We finally found his plain tombstone and unlike his three siblings, the top of his was white, clean white. I could almost see the hands of the thousands who love him, stroking the top as I was.

It was by accident that we came to be looking at Robert Frost's grave in Bennington , Vermont. There he was, that American poet who wrote about the solidarity he felt with the grass mower who left a tuft of wildflowers uncut as the poet himself would have.The three of us caught in the beauty of those flowers in his poem.And yes, there were three birches surrounding his grave."One can do worse than be a swinger of birches."

Willa Cather, that writer whose gorgeous prose almost had me packing a bag and heading out for New Mexico or Nebraska, is buried in New Hampshire. Maybe,I 'll get there one day. Georgia O'Keeffe, whose art and life enchant me is spread on top of her beloved Perdenales mountain.What a wonderful trek that would be to pay my respects.

There is one person in my panoply of hero artists that I will probably never visit. She wrote light, enchanting Christian books in the 70s. These joy filled, honest memoirs helped my stumbling faith in its beginning. Ann Kiemel was a runner when I wasn't, she shared her faith when I didn't but she loved the Lord as I was starting to. And she was bold about it.

The introduction to one of her books begins this way : "every morning I wake up with a prayer: 'Jesus , i am just ann,  my city is so big (Boston), make me creative, give me ideas for my corner of the world.' I can't tell you how much I love that.

Having read most of her books, I then lost touch with her doings. A few years back, I found her blog, "I am running to win", and again, she inspired. In 2014, she passed away and I can't find where she is buried. I am sure in California where she lived then.

This Christmas, my runner granddaughter is going to get two of her books. They are used but to me those are the best. Most have a message of love on the inside; I find them to be treasures. Maybe Ann's words will stir something wonderful in my McKenna and in her time, perhaps she will visit and say thank you for both of us.