If you are from New England, Memorial Day is for grave visiting. A time to remember those who have pasted, those who were lost, sharing lore and planting pansies or geraniums. In the oldest, colonial cemetery on Cape Cod, my 8th great-grandmother Mercy Worden is buried. She is surrounded by family, my other great-grandparents Kenelm, Elinor and Peter among them, but her headstone is the oldest in the yard.

The graveyard sits on the side of a hill, in someone else’s backyard in East Dennis, MA. Fenced off from disturbance. A hard, slate headstone, purported to be from England, marks Mercy’s rest on September 22, 1688. The Worden/Winslow Cemetery was part of a larger estate of my 9th great-grandfather Peter Worden. The land was known as ‘the Eden’ of the region.

I didn’t visit the Worden Cemetery as a child as I didn’t know of it. None of us did. These stories and family had been lost from us and now I have found them. Unbelievable tales of first settlers, soldiers, farmers – men and women deemed foreparents of our sacred union – the United States of America. I am much better for the discovery of what had been inside of me. In the blood. Vibrating with intention. Now reborn in my voice. I am grateful to be a Pilgrims’ granddaughter. Learning the stories, both good and bad, making a home in my soul to receive. With thee, we do abide.