With the publication of this short personal essay, Alton Parker, a dear friend of mine, and talented writer presents “Remembrance of a Gravestone,” about a monument he saw while on the road from Flagstaff, Arizona to Los Angeles, California. 

Thank you, Alton, for considering publishing, for the first time, on my blog. I love this story.

The setting sun gave the distant mountains a glow of flaming amber. Heading to their far off vista was a straight asphalt highway, cracked and pitted with age. On either side of the highway, a plain of gamboge prairie grass stood. It did not complain about being split by the road; it simply was. Utilitarian power lines were strung alongside the highway, periodically interspersed with poles stretching up into the twilight. Upon one of these, a speckled falcon perched, scanning the ground intently for its next unfortunate meal. Vultures circled the violet sky. 

An unusual monument stood at a point between destination and beginning: a gravestone. Long ago, eons for all I knew, a car accident had killed two people here. Artificial flowers had been collected. The roses must have been a striking crimson at some point, but they had long since been sun bleached into a dull depressing grey. 

No one stops to pay their respects. No one cares about the gravestone beside the asphalt highway. The names of those deaths have been lost, the files rotting away in the archives of some forgotten local newspaper. 

I wonder what their names are. 

I feel a burning need to know who they were and  who they left behind. Does anyone remember them? Does anyone care anymore? I continue my journey towards the amber mountains, now disappearing into ink black night. I remember the gravestone beside the asphalt highway. 

I remember.

December 12, 2025