Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: Catagory
Big boxes
little boxes
beds of marble
names carved in stone
How dignified ,how organzied, how neat.
We spend our lives striving to be unique and special
we roar, we talk out of turn, we laugh to loud
and forget to close our mouths when we are chewing
our food.
Sometimes we drive our cars to fast and yell at our dogs.
But in the end
we obediently line up in neatly plotted rows
and allowed ourselves to be labeled with just a few simple words etched in granite that
disappear slowly
and in an orderly fashion over time.
Janet Brooks on Broadway in Sleepy Hollow next to Dutch Reformed Church
I have thought about this. There is a family plot in a Saint Louis cemetery, the city where I was born. It began with my great grandmother on my dad’s (via his mother’s) side — his mother’s mother. When she died, my grandfather bought this portion of a cemetery. Therefore, he and his wife were subsequently buried there. Then, the oldest son of my grandmother and grandfather (the oldest not being my dad) passed and was “laid to rest” there as well. One of his children had some health issues and has already joined her dad in a sense; her mother — ex wife of her father (in her eighties now) — has been told (by my one remaining sibling of my father) that she can have a spot when the time comes. [If that remaining sibling of my father dies before that time, then the living cousins (including myself) will, in point of fact, all have to agree on who is allowed. But I see no reason to decline that request.]
My dad is also buried in that place. Neither of my dad’s sisters (one of them, being my dad’s remaining living sibling) is or intends to be buried there. My mom wants to be buried there and says the living aunt told her she could be. This actually involves my mom trying to get brownie points with my aunt a lot of the time; it’s ridiculous. My aunt is Catholic, but I think she has splintered off into that exuberant (or something like that) group that claims to be the real Catholics (unaffiliated with the pope). My mom converted to Catholicism (the standard form) recently, not having any clue (in her own understanding, that is, although my aunt talks about the details) of the difference; it’s almost humorous. Anyway, I’m thinking I don’t want to be buried there (especially if my mother is to be). That way, too, the daughters of the cousin who has already gone on, and their uncle in guardianship of them, can have space.
You’ve obviously given me an opportunity to think out loud (or in public) 😲. If these people select cremation, then even her other brother and his wife and adopted son could have a reserved location. It’s interesting that some people who want to be cremated (or whose family members prefer this) want, yet, to be buried. Others want to be on a mantle, or something, in a decorative container. Still others want their ashes scattered here or there, some anywhere and some in a particular place or number of places. There is even the new option of becoming a zirconia stone. I helped someone after their closest loved one gave way to disease and picked a decorative container to be remembered by (and in). Said surviving someone of the beloved doesn’t like the style of pottery picked and is likely to keep it in a closet or other hidden cubby. Forgive me; my mom’s obsessiveness occupies my thoughts.
People need to talk about these things. After someone has passed means you are dedicating time to ‘making arrangements’ instead of celebrating or grieving someone’s life.
So get the framework set up and let people create the service and that way everyone’s wishes to some point will be respected.