In the summer of 2026, a writer and their family undertook an unconventional road trip through the Upper Midwest, exploring cemeteries across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois. The journey was motivated by a desire to confront themes of mortality and find solace amid a turbulent period marked by violence and social unrest in their home state.
The family began their tour in June with a visit to a pioneer cemetery near Duluth, Minnesota, nestled alongside the Saint Louis River. The quiet spaces, dotted with weathered tombstones and unusual obelisks, offered an opportunity for reflection away from the pressures of modern life. For the writer, who works part-time as a mental health crisis responder in Minneapolis, these visits became a form of “forest bathing,” a way to steady the mind against the backdrop of a difficult year.
That year and a half had seen a series of tragedies in Minnesota. In June 2025, the Twin Cities faced a state-wide manhunt after a shooting that killed state representative Melissa Holtzman and her husband, and left Senator John Hoffman and his wife seriously injured. August brought another shock with a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School resulting in two child fatalities and 28 injuries. The day prior, the writer and a partner responded to yet another shooting scene, providing emotional support to children who witnessed the violence. Complicating the social landscape, federal agents conducted raids in the Twin Cities in December 2025, adding to residents’ sense of instability.
Seeking a way to process these events, the writer proposed a “cemetery summer” road trip to their wife and children—an affordable escape from rising summer costs and gated recreational facilities. The plan was met with acceptance and enthusiasm, especially from the writer’s mental health colleague, Colter Flanagan, a counseling psychology doctoral student who researches death, dying, and mental well-being. Flanagan emphasized the cultural discomfort around confronting mortality, noting how society often evades discussions on aging and death, despite their inevitability.
Together, the family visited numerous burial grounds, including the La Pointe Indian Cemetery on Madeline Island, Wisconsin, which features Ojibwe spirit houses surrounded by a fence decorated with personal mementos. On Mackinac Island in Michigan, they encountered graves dating back two centuries. Their travels also took them to Gros Cap Cemetery along Lake Michigan, reputedly the oldest continuously used cemetery in the United States, with origins as a burial site for Anishinaabe peoples dating to the 1600s.
Throughout the trip, these encounters sparked conversations within the family about end-of-life wishes and the meaning of a “good” death. The children gradually engaged with the subject in their own ways, with the 16-year-old humorously imagining his ashes incorporated into his linguine recipe.
By the end of their journey, the writer observed the ubiquitous presence of humble cemeteries, roadside memorials, and commemorations that reveal the many lives lived and lost across the region. The experience underscored the coexistence of life’s fragility and persistence.
Reflecting on the trip’s conclusion, the writer recalled a passage from “Orbital,” a novel about astronauts observing Earth's fragility from space. It captures the paradox of human existence: profoundly significant yet transient. As the family made their way back through the wooded trails near Duluth, alive with laughter and light-heartedness, it was a reminder that life endures, even amid the awareness of death.