As you can tell from these essays, my friends are good adventurous people. They are kind enough to go out of theirs way to visit cemeteries with me.

Thanks to Mattie, who said nothing about dragging around in the heat with me in Sacramento, and to Brian, who was going to drive around and around that block of LA until we found Westwood Memorial Park. He was right. It was totally worth it.

Thanks to Ann Marie, who got me far enough away from my life that I could count my blessings. I've never forgotten the night we stayed up watching falling stars.

Thanks to Forestter, for chauffeuring us around Chicago and telling some great ghost stories, and to Jude, who has supported my love of cemeteries from Borderlands Bookstore in San Francisco.

Thanks for Gary and his family, who showed us a great time in Singapore and whose daughter I might have inadvertently sent to sit with the scorpion.

Thanks especially to my mom, who is willing to poke around any cemetery with me, even to explore cemeteries in my name, if I can't be there to join her, and my dad, who has waited patiently for me many, many times as I explored.

And of course, thanks to my husband Mason and daughter Sorrell, who are extremely patient with me dragging them around to cemeteries around the world. I didn't make it to Europe until I was 27, when I discovered Highgate. Sorrell's already been to graveyards in Kyoto, Singapore, Barcelona, Paris, London, and Stratford, Canada. Pretty good for an eighth grader.

Thank you also, gentle reader, for coming along on my adventures. I'd love to hear if you have a favorite cemetery that I ought to see.

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This book is dedicated to my brother Allen and my great aunt Hilda, both of whom supported my love of cemeteries and inhabit them now.