There was a time when my morning walk took me away from distractions - enough so that I could contemplate my day and consider what I wished to do with it. But now it takes me to Jenny's grave and past all the other graves of Wildwood Cemetary - and what I contemplate there are things such as why we wish to remember the dead at all and for how long we must care for their memory.

Wildwood is a large cemetery by suburban standards. The oldest graves date back to a time before Ashland was separate from Hopkinton, and it contains the remains of all the prominent citizens that are now preserved as household names in other forms - such as John Stone's Inn and the Lelands of Leland Farm Road. In the effort to be remembered, it is not uncommon to find memorials standing more than 12 feet high and weighing many tons - the workmanship, no doubt, of the most prestigious masons in New England.

And then there are the ad hoc memorials - the wooden bird feeder near Jenny, the rose and milky quartz headstones to the westward side of her grave, the wooden crosses here and there, and the temporary momentos placed at Kevin Kane's grave... an Easter basket and lilies and a wooden sign with his name painted in bright colors. Kevin fought valiantly and publicly against cancer, and lost to the broken hearts of so many. And now he and Jenny lie 62 feet apart within sight of the Federated Church steeple and the water tank in Westboro and all else that can be seen on a clear day.

Down the hill I finally trudged, then back into town and to the Post Office to pick up more tax forms, then north past the general store and the fire station. And there suddenly through the open door I saw the Ashland Ambulance - the vehicle in which Jenny was riding when her heart stopped beating. For a moment my heart stopped, too, and in so doing I drew the concerned attention of two firemen. And for another moment I considered asking them if I could see the inside of the vehicle - but then I would have to explain. But for one morning I had seen enough of death, so I chose not to explain or ask or pause any longer.

So how long should we remember the dead? And is doing so a good thing, or are we just tormenting ourselves by visiting their graves? Will I ever find a balance between caring for Jenny's memory and going on without her?

Of course the day will come when I will be gone, and some day after that all living memory of her will leave the earth as well - and there will be a grave in a town west of Boston with a marker bearing the name of one Jennifer Michele Ramsley. And perhaps someone recently bereaved will happen by and wonder who she was. And then they will walk on into distraction day after day until the next glaciers come and sweep this hillside away. And then she will be gone entirely - no one to care for her memory or even know that she had ever lived in this town.

Except for those famous people such as president's and dictators and artists, the fate of the common man or woman on this planet is oblivion. Perhaps that is why we so cherish the hope for an afterlife for ourselves and for those who we have lost.