legs hurt her more tonight than usual.  She had thought about taking her cane, but abandoned the idea.  So, she walked slow.  There was no rush, no reason to hurry.

     When she finally reached it, she knelt down, blew kisses to her ma and pa’s graves, caressed Pa Ryan’s gravestone, blew a kiss to the grassy dirt that had held him for many years, then moved over just a little, blew small kisses to babies’ William’s and Lansford’s tiny graves, then moved over a little more and touched the fresh mound of dirt covered just this morning.  She smoothed each of the letters on the new, shiny gravestone very slowly: D-E-S-T-I-N-Y.  She brushed a tear away with her crooked finger and spoke so proudly, so surely, her voice crackling just a little, from the...

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