from all over the world were here for her funeral." Attached to the weathered plaque is a small black vase with nearly-fresh poinsettias. "I see to it that flowers are there, at least most of the time. I kind of adopted her. It just seems right."
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Knowing what Kathy Whitman looked like makes the visit more tragic. She was beautiful. Knowing that she chose teaching as an honorable profession brings pointless questions of the lives she could have touched; the world was robbed of her grace, intellect and talent. Knowing that on her last day she fell asleep feeling safe and that her death came quickly and painlessly brings little comfort. She has occupied space five, lot forty-two of section H of Davis-Greenlawn Memorial Park since 3 August 1966.
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Approximately 1,200 miles away, via the Eisenhower Interstate System, in West Palm Beach, Florida, is Hillcrest Memorial Park. Across the street from a large, domed silver water storage tank, a life-size statue above a small columbarium depicts a mother and father looking down upon their young son and daughter with gentleness and kindness. At the base of the statue is inscribed "Family Protection." Here, too, is peace.
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At Hillcrest narrow asphalt roads wind among the weathered metal plaques. Some of the plaques near the edges of the drive are bent, run over by indifferent and careless drivers. Well-manicured boxwoods and exotic trees dot the ground's rolling hills. In the very center of the cemetery, atop a stainless steel flagpole, the star-spangled banner flaps in a gentle breeze. Nearby, in section sixteen, is buried the man who killed Kathy Leissner Whitmanher husband, Charles Joseph Whitman. On the right lies Margaret E. Whitman, his mother. He killed her, too.
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Charlie's plaque is adorned by an engraving of Saint Joseph, his patron saint. A rosary stretches across the top and around an opening where a vase should be. No one has adopted this grave. An engraving of the Virgin Mary and a rosary as well adorn Margaret's plaque. Yet another Whitman, John Michael, whom Charlie playfully called "Johnnie Mike," the victim of another tragedy, lies to the right. An angel with a spear adorns his plaque.
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When Charles and Margaret Whitman were buried together on 5 August 1966, the world was only beginning to comprehend the horror of what he had done, and yet his gray metal casket was draped
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