When I leave my apartment and drive west on Bank Road, knowing that I’m heading for Vashon Cemetery, something begins to happen deep inside — a sense of peace and of beauty. I drive on; the feeling intensifies.

As I navigate my recent years, this feeling has grown, but it is not a feeling of death, but of life — life beautiful and everlasting. Last Saturday two women were there for just awhile, walking and jogging on the gravel roads. Something special.

I parked close by bird artist Edmund Sawyer and his wife Helen. Until the 1970s, they lived in Burton.

I took my lightweight Swedish-made walker out of the trunk of the car and wandered past the Sawyers over to sit for awhile with my friend Myrna. A beautiful day, blue sky above and so many shades of green below.

Recently — a different visit — there was an abundance of robins sharing the cemetery. They seemed happy to be there, just as I was happy to be there.

There’s a need to share feelings of peace and beauty that have been happening in recent years, to share these words in this my autobiography. How about yours?

— Gordon Fisk