The Dexter & Walkabout Reflection

This week I really enjoyed the walkabout because I felt we took a tour in many different time eras. It was amazing to go inside the Dexter and see how huge it really was. It was kind of eerie but, very interesting. It was literally like something you would see in a movie. I enjoyed taking a walk through some of the older sections and really taking time to admire the many gravestones and monuments we had not yet seen. It is amazing that even though we have been there for the past several weeks it always feels like we are seeing something new and exciting. There is always something new to learn in each walkabout we partake in. I was happy to learn about Canthus leaves and what they look like because I was stumped as to what they were when I was doing research on Jacob Hoffner's monument. Some of my other favorite parts of the walkabout included seeing the Sphinx and the Pyramid up close. I feel like every week I am able to consider a whole new outlook from the prior week. Another thing that really struck my attention this week was when we were all talking about how most of the cemeteries we visited were not well cared for. It really is rather sad to think that those buried there are no longer cared for and if someone does not take a positive step forward to caring for them, one day they will no longer be there and those buried there may be forgotten forever. It is sad to think we rewrite newer and nicer history books every year and sell them for such insane costs in schools and let those who actually took part in our history blow away in the wind. It struck me when Marcha said that America does not seem to care about hanging on to our history. I have always felt that way. Being that I have been in Italy I was exposed to a whole other world and in Italy they took such pride in caring for their history. Instead of knocking things down and rebuilding something "prettier and newer" they put a great deal of hard work and money into restoring the beauty of the older historic monuments. That is how things should be. I feel everything has become so materialistic in this world that we all forget where we came from and what can be sadder than that. If we do not have a history, a family to look back to, a culture, what do we have other than a bunch of pretty non-meaningful objects? Life and death should both be about more than materials because when we move on to the other life there is nothing for us to take other than our life experiences and it would be great to know that we lived life to the fullest and not just because of what we owned but, who we are and what we did. Hopefully, after living a hard life one can leave this world knowing that they were worth while enough to never just be left to disappear from every one's memories as if they never existed.