Tomb With A View

This is the view from my father's gravesite. When my parents purchased it, they got three plots. One for my dad, one for my mom...and one for me. My brother is married with two children so the assumption was that they would eventually have their own, but as the single son, they were planning ahead so I'd have a spot. [Check out my funny blog Alzheimer's Moments about life with mom.]

It has a beautiful view atop a hill and located about 50 yards from the place where famous painter Grandma Moses was laid to rest (located off to the right of your computer screen). On this day, I was there to plant daffodil and hyacinth bulbs around the tombstone. The stone has a large lovely rose carved neatly into the marble on the front and my father's name with birth and death years on the back. Under that, my mom's name and year of birth is engraved with a seemingly ominous blank where her year of death will be chiseled. There is nothing for me given that I may or may not end up there.

Which makes me think, it was clear in the old days that you would be buried with your spouse. But now with divorce rates so high, where are people buried? If you die early, and your spouse remarries, who goes where? It's all so confusing.

Is it morbid to think about this being where I will be buried? Where my body will spend eternity? How long, really, is eternity? 1000 years? 1,000,000 years? Forever? I doubt that cemeteries will last forever — so what will be the eventual end of my remains? Who, in the future, will be the ones to determine that? The government? A housing developer a la Poltergeist? A post-apocalyptic Mad-Maxish band of grave robbers after the suddenly valuable amalgam fillings in my teeth? Would I be better off with a cremation and scattered ashes at sea? At least then I'd be in some control. And should I really care since I'll be dead?

I think I'll stop there. My mind is racing in a strange stream of consciousness this morning. I think it's because of the disturbing news item of the mother that killed her newborn daughter by placing her in a microwave oven. When I heard that I vascillated between nausea and tears.