Upworthy · 4 hours ago

A Man Picks Random Graves to Research and Uncovers Remarkable Forgotten Lives

Simon Howard walks through overgrown sections of cemeteries, choosing graves at random, then goes home to reconstruct the lives buried beneath the stone. What he uncovers for George and Reginald Bailey - two brothers who died within days of each other in 1934, their grieving family receiving a telegram about the second death on the way to the first funeral - is the kind of sorrow that history absorbs without a trace, unless someone goes looking. "Rest in peace, Reginald and George," Howard says after clearing the weeds and placing two small white flowers on the headstone. "We will remember you." His work is a quiet argument that every life contains a world worth knowing, and that the simple act of looking - really looking - is itself a form of love.