After getting checked out, Mom got to come home instead of them keeping her, which is nice. Another crisis averted for now.
The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of stuff, not just mom's issues, but also a funeral for my friend's mom. It was a lovely service and the cemetery is one that I haven't spent much time in. It's a great old cemetery, Graceland, not far from my favorite one around here, Oak Park, which I go on and on about. I love a cemetery with old family crypts and big old headstones. Oak Park sits on a cliff on one end, at the baby section, which is really creepy. But it is a peaceful place. Oldstyle wrought iron gates, a turn of the century mausoleum with big rusty doors. It's a place where the dead can feel at rest, and not on display. Photo is Suki on a gravestone there. I took this in the early 1980's.
Graceland sits on a beautiful property with rolling hills, and does have some old graves, but newer sections now too. The ones with the flat marker and vases in them. It is also a very peaceful place.
The only thing I didn't like was when I was sitting in the newer mausoleum at Graceland, I saw not only the "drawers" people have with their names on them but also these see-through cubes with urns. And people put photographs and little momentos there. My first thought was it seems like a bookshelf or curio. I couldn't imagine it being here a hundred years from now, like those crumbling, still legible century old graves outside. It didn't seem permanent, like being put in the ground does. Or having your ashes scattered somewhere...
With illness and death come discussions sometimes we'd rather not have, but end up having. No one wants to think about their own death, of course, but you can't help but wonder where you will end up. By strange chance this week, I got a call from the cemetery where my dad is buried. It is a bit commercial to me. It sits right next to a road that has a lot of traffic. They also have a lot of rules. You have to have plastic flowers off at a certain date, you can't plant anything, you can't stick anything in the ground, etc.... no memorials really other than what you can stick in a vase. You see, they are mostly all "flat" graves, and they mow around them. It makes life easier for the living.But you don't really get to honor the dead. I stick plastic flowers in there for dad, but I don't feel really good about it. From the road it looks like every other vase with a plastic flower in it.
A nice enough woman called, going on about how they are doing a privacy policy or some such thing and computerizing records.... and how she wants to set up and appointment with me. The cynic in me says she wants to sell me plots. I cheerfully informed her that I couldn't possibly meet with her, but by all means send me all the paperwork she wants and we'll sign off on it. (I'm not having that conversation just yet. The big one. A plot with my name on it.)
1 comment:
Oh man. We are getting to that point aren't we? What about those people get their own damn stone with their birthday and a dash and then an empty space for their date of death. No thanks. Burn me up and throw me into the wind. (One of the most peaceful jobs I ever had was cemetery attendant.)
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