There I was on a perfect spring day, high up on a hill shaded by magnificent oaks draped with Spanish moss, reading gravestones. This cemetery had a nice mixture of recent and historical graves, mostly plain, just the name and dates, but some of them had poignant messages:
A baby, age 1
"God took him"
Mattie S.
wife of E.M. Griffin,
1873-1909
"Twas hard to give thee up
But Thy will O God be done"
The Wade family didn't involve God:
Charlie Wade
(no date)
"Gone but not forgot"
"At Rest"
And nearby, a smaller, more recent grave:
Charlie Mae Wade
9-12-31 to 9-2-66
said simply:
"Loved"
That one really brought tears to my eyes, because that one word says it all, doesn't it?
The laconic Wade family knew what really matters in this world and beyond.