idea I would find. As I walked among the white headstones, it was mentioned that there was a dog near the monument Devin was standing by. I figured I might as well go investigate. On the way over I noticed the name "MACKENZIE" etched on a headstone. It instantly caught my attention. J.D. Mackenzie was a member of the British Royal Artillery and died at the age of twenty nine. To my knowledge we have nothing in common but our shared surname and our clan, but that is still a connection nevertheless. To make things a bit more abnormal, the crest of the Royal Artillery was etched at the top of the headstone. The Tudor Crown was a part of that crest, and is also tattooed on my chest. It was a little strange, but not entirely surprising. The Mackenzies are a fairly large clan and the Tudor Crown a fairly prominent symbol.
I continued over to the monument that Devin had been looking at earlier. I discovered another abnormality. At the top of the monument was one of my family crests - the one I happen to have tattooed on my left forearm. The monument itself was dedicated to members of the Seaforth Highlanders, a regiment sponsored by Clan Mackenzie centuries ago. This, combined with the gravestone I had encountered earlier, was strange. I never expected to encounter such a thing in this cemetery, but I did. Two of the three things I had tattooed on my body were present in the cemetery, both with direct connections to my greater family.
Interconnectedness is something that is comforting to me, and as a student of history I appreciate my connections to the past - no matter how small or unexpected they may be.
*To note, I opted for the official spelling of Mackenzie, which uses a lower case k - not the capital K my branch of the clan uses. Not that this note matters to anyone but me, but I wanted to point out the difference. It is just one of those little things I appreciate.
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