Dirty Laundry

Of Gravesites and Grandeur

I have no idea what the grandeur part of that title means but I do have some wonderfully exciting news to report about graves. And no, it has nothing to do with the new Twilight movie.

Yesterday my wife and I went on a lovely field trip to a burial park. Yes, they do call it a burial park. Just like an amusement park but less amusing. Think of a water park and remove the fun slides and wave pools and replace those with tombstones and mausoleums. That’s right. You’ve got the picture now.

Even though we are nowhere near the age one thinks about dying (well, actually, I think about dying quite a lot. How I might go. If it’ll be in a plane crash or an earthquake or if my heart will explode or if I will simply go mad and start drooling and forget my name and all my internet passwords) BUT my wife thought it prudent for us to make all the arrangements for our inevitable passing (because we’re all going to go sooner or later) so that our families wouldn’t have to worry about it when we do “move on” and so that there wouldn’t be any arguments or fisticuffs over where we should be planted and what type of headstone (color, design, engravings, etc) we should have.

Thus, our jaunt to the burial park to choose and pay for our gravesites. This is only part one of the process. We still need to choose a funeral home and a casket (can mine be in the shape of a hockey net?) and a headstone.

Well, wouldn’t you know it. All the cozy shady tree lined nooks of the graveyard were already “occupied.” And so, we had to settle for the new “wing.” In a spot behind a recently built meditation circle, next to a young sapling of a tree that will be grand (ah ha! there’s the grandeur I promised you!) in a hundred years or so.

Here’s me standing on the spot where one day I will be buried. Pretty neat, huh?!

I suggested to my wife that we might want to consider getting our headstone put up immediately (well, after the two months it takes to carve the thing). Just so that we know it’s there waiting for us and so that nobody else can steal our perfectly chosen spots. This way, we can go visit our plots, even have a picnic lunch (it is a park after all) and enjoy our gravesites while we still can!!!

Posted by Don Calame on 7.16.10 at 11:38 am in Prattlings. (1) Comments