Til Death...

I have always had a fascination with cemeteries. My elementary school was next to a cemetery and I found a way to hike up and around the fence to an opening so I could walk among the gravestones while my classmates played kiss tag or hung upside down from monkey bars. I'd spend that time imagining the lives between the dashes, being able to hear the other kids playing and shouting. I'd wipe the moss or dirt off the stones, and fantasize about the lives of strangers. It was all very goth and dramatic. It wasn't that I didn't have friends to play with at recess, or that I did it every day. It was that some days, I just didn't want to hang-out with the living.

I've recently read a memoir where the author and her brother spent afternoons of their childhood riding bikes in graveyards, reading the names and imaging lives. It was comforting to know I'm not alone in appreciation of the stones chosen by loved ones to honor their dead.

My wife does not want a headstone. She thinks it's impractical and a waste of money. She'd rather have a chair engraved with her name looking over a beach somewhere. I've tried to explain that the stone isn't for her, but for those she leaves behind. She won't be deterred. A chair would be functional and probably better for humanity - but there's something about a stone that could last decades longer than a life that I just can't let go of.

When I was in high school, my grandmother died - my father's mother. And despite being one of 15 children, the funeral arrangements, the burial, the service - all of it, was left to my father. And in his grief, he convinced my mother that they should be proactive and buy their own headstones and pay, in advance for the cost of their burial as to not to burden my brother and I. Very practical. Only, after he bought them, he insisted on taking me to them - to know where they'd be. So in grief, I wouldn't have to stumble through the other stones to find their place. (It's at the same cemetery next to my elementary school). When we got there, I refused to get out of the car - not wanting to see their final resting place - something about it didn't feel right. I wanted to wait, keep the stone sacred for when I was ready to grieve them. So he got out of the car anyway and literally lay on the ground in front of the stone. He waved his arms and legs back and forth, making a grave angel to bring levity to his impending death. That only infuriated my 17 year old self. Both of my parents are still living, so their stone is still there, waiting. Their names engraved at the top, their birth dates and the dash.

And despite the functionality and practicality of those around me, planning for death - I have no image of the stone I'd want for myself. Or the words engraved below my name. I only hope that one day, decades from now, someone else will come across my stone and wonder.

(The actual view from the cemetery by my elementary school, not far from my parents' and grandparents' waiting headstones).