Graves

Patsy Wallis Clay

1945 – 1998

My mother. A Clay, at rest on Clay ground.

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Patsy Wallis Clay headstone, 1945 to 1998 — a Clay family grave — with a shadowed figure reflected in the granite

This is my mother's stone. It carries the Wallis name and the Clay name together, and the dates 1945 to 1998 — fifty-three years, gone in a glance across the granite. The Clay plot has been taking its people in for generations, and it has never sorted them by how famous they were.

When the light comes in low, the granite goes to mirror, and whoever stands there finds themselves standing with her. I didn't plan that photograph. The stone did.

Cassius Marcellus Clay was my cousin, and every Clay stone in this ground is a branch of that same tree.

Read about my cousin, Cassius Marcellus Clay.