At the end of 2014, just a few months after the graveyards.com relaunch, I made a life-changing decision: I would leave Chicago, where I'd lived for 22 years, and Illinois, where I'd lived since birth, to move to Seattle.
From that moment I abandoned all else to work on my move. Ten years in the same apartment meant there was much work to be done; I eliminated decades of accumulation of books, art, and other possessions, so that I could both reduce moving expenses and be ready for a much smaller apartment. I also wanted to research and study my chosen city - I'd never been to Seattle, but I'd been to Portland, and knew that I loved the climate and terrain of the Northwest. Thus, graveyards.com went on hiatus once again.
My only visit to a cemetery in 2015, and my last visit to an Illinois graveyard, was in August, when a friend and I stopped briefly at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston after returning from a work meeting. With the aid of a groundskeeper, we located the unmarked grave of Mayor Jane Byrne (who had died about one year before), and I snapped a few pictures with a mobile phone; a strangely muted finale to my obsession of the past two decades.
I moved in September, and spent the next few months getting unpacked and settled in, as well as exploring my new city. Seattle and its natural surroundings are achingly beautiful - everything I'd hoped for and more.
My photographs of the northwest - of mountains, ships, islands, bald eagles, waterfalls, ancient conifers - may be seen at https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthucke
Someday I shall take up graveyard exploration again.