ashes to ashes

There is book shop a few blocks south of my place, that I often walk by. I picked up this book because I thought it was pretty. Upon on a second look, I found that it was the funeral book for a young girl by the name of Catherine M. Coughlin who had died in the 1950s. The book had an envelope full of cards from floral arrangments, a photo of the girl as a baby with her mother, and lists of visitors, callers and casserole bringers. The letter, from a classmate, is an incredible example of the frank speech of a child, free from euphemisms.
This book made me think, strange distant thoughts. I've been melancholy ever since I picked it up. How did it end up here? In my hands? What now...