Not so special after all.

Recently I visited my family in Oklahoma. We didn't grow up there but my brother-in-law was stationed at Fort Sill my sister set roots there, raised children there, and my mother soon followed. That's how I have family in Oklahoma.
I've been to visit a few times over the past couple of decades. Previously they took me to the Apache Prisoner's Of War cemetery where Geronimo is buried. I saw his burial marker and those related or connected to him by tribe. Families are buried next to relatives and who a person was and who they were connected to is etched into the tombstone. For example: Thomas Dah-Ke-Ya was an Apache, son of Dah-Ke-Ya and Lulu Geronimo, 1890, 1908.
Here's another example with Zi-Yeh, wife of Geronimo.

They have a connection to others. In return, they are connected.
But I also saw several lone headstones. They stood isolated, far from the neat rows of family markers where father and mother lay next to children and their spouses. Singular headstones. The one that got my attention on my first visit was Francisco's. An Apache Woman, 1847, 1901.

My immediate thought was, who is the woman? Why is she here, isolated from the other Apache and their families? Was she an outcast? Was she unknown?
I glommed onto that last idea: was she unknown. That's because I am fixated on the fact that one day I will no longer exist. People try to tell me that I'll live on in my daughter's genes, in my writing, the memories of my friends and family. That's small comfort but it does seep into my writing.
I have thought about the idea of a character's permanence being dependent on being remembered. The more they are remembered, the more substantial their "ghost" is. And as the memories fade, so do they. But if they are remembered again, they once again gain substance. An interesting premise but one that I find some comfort in. In that even though I'll be nothing, I won't be forgotten. For a while, anyway.
So, great, I'm thinking of Francisco the Apache woman and my thinking of her gives her substance. I'm the bearer of a small torch for an unknown woman.
Then I get the glorious idea to Google her. Ah, vanity, they name is Earl. There's a decent amount of information about her at Wikitree.
She doesn't need me, she's been enshrined on the world wide web. Which is a healthy reminder that none of us (I'm looking at you, mirror) are really so special after all.

There was another singular tombstone for an Apache named John Smith. I've just included him to add a little substantiation to him as well.