How can we talk about dying without talking about what it means to live?

Hot Springs, N.C. is a special place. Everybody who lives there knows that.

It’s a lot of things: it first belonged to the Cherokee, and later was colonized by the Scots-Irish. It once-upon-a-time became a section of the Appalachian Trail, and now traffics in something of a tourist economy. But it remains full of ghosts.

In the March of 2017, toting recording gear and an address of some folks who would take me in, I spent a few weeks co-creating oral histories with folks in town. I cam with a question: I wanted to understand how physical geography shapes who we become. That July, I went back and kept asking questions.

It was in stories of ancestors that I began to understand what it means to have been made by landscape. I changed my questions. Instead of asking how one lives here, I began trying to understand what it means to die here.

I'm entirely indebted to the folks I met along the way: for our big and small chats; for our porch time, drives, meals, and church services shared, I owe this to them. Here, you'll meet Heather, Genia, George, and Zack—a few of my new friends who helped me along, and some of whom have now passed away. And of course, this project couldn't have been started—or continued—without the support of Sally and Ike Lassiter. I'm forever grateful to them.