Stasia, Brown Burying Ground

My daughter-in-law started her fourth round of chemo this week, and while the treatments to curb a cancer that, during the past four years, just won't quit, are always harrowing, this time, the oncologists are throwing really heavyweight drugs at the malignancy, so I got a call to drive up to New Hampshire, through two snowstorms, to retrieve my granddaughter while her mom attempted to regain her strength. With Stasia here, everything that doesn't have to be done gets put on the shelf and we attempt to keep the almost six-year-old calm and happy and not thinking about the health-caused disruption in her life. At first glance, then, taking our hiker past a graveyard would seem almost insane—a sure-fire way to muddy the mental- and emotional-health waters—but Stasia is at that age when she has started asking questions and trying to grapple with the uneasy facts of life—and death. Our job, as grandparents, is to provide answers. As she looked at the small markers, she had lots of questions.