Geraldine Brooks Quote

The Wampanoag, in ways which are not plain to me, in concert decided upon their own observance of father’s passing. They marked it in a most singular manner. As soon as father’s loss became known to them, each one, when traveling up or down the island, would fetch from the shore a smooth white stone such as can oft be found there. These they carried until they passed the place where father had taken farewell of them. There they deposited them. Within days, there was a cairn. In the weeks that followed, you could say, a monument, each stone of it placed with the care of an artisan. The last I saw, it had grown higher than a man, and still the Wampanoag came, one by one, placing a stone upon a stone.