The Bible tells us that our modern condition — a restless ennui shot through with irony and cynicism — is not modern at all; this is what the human condition has always been.  "All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." (Ecc. 1:8)  We are constantly yearning for new, genuine experiences, something different and authentic.

Well, I recently had such an experience: I bought a cemetery plot for my family and me.

Most of my peers to whom I have mentioned this have looked at me blankly.  'Burial?  Aren't you supposed to plan for that in your sixties?'  It is a bit like the couple that gets married in college; there's nothing wrong with it (their friends think), but why are they thinking those thoughts now?

I'm not sure why I was thinking those thoughts now.  Perhaps my own internal clock started running earlier than others' because my father died when I was a young man.  Perhaps posterity looms larger now that I have two young children; 'my line will continue!' etc.  Perhaps I have a morbid turn of mind.  For whatever reason, though, it was time.

I decided to be buried in a distant, rural county which, though far from my own home, is the resting place of my ancestors.  The first American to have my surname (my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather) was born in 1738 in France, came to this country, served under Washington at Valley Forge, and finally settled in this county.  From him to me comprises seven generations, all of them buried in three cemeteries scattered around its hills.  In fact, my father, grandfather and great-grandfather are all buried in a municipal graveyard in the county seat, and it was there that I chose for myself.  The idea of being laid to rest in the shadow of my forebears has a strong, mysterious resonance for me.

After deciding on the cemetery, though, I wasn't sure how to proceed.  No one I knew had ever done this before.  I called a mortician in the small town, and he knew the name and home phone of the custodian of the cemetery.  After a little phone tag, we connected.  He told me that graves were still available; they cost $500 apiece.  We agreed to meet one morning.  

I met him in the cemetery at the appointed time, after making the long drive the previous day from my home.  The custodian — let's call him Wendell — was already there, waiting for me.  He was a kind, trim, elderly man, wearing faded jeans, a plaid shirt, and glasses.  He had with him a few notebooks and maps and other cemetery records.  He inquired politely about me, where I was from, why I was seeking burial in this little town, how many plots I intended to buy (four).

After the pleasantries were over, the fateful moment occurred.  There were no plots adjacent to my father, grandfather and great-grandfather; that section of the cemetery was much too old to have any available land.  So, looking around the rest of the graveyard... where exactly would I like to be buried?  Wendell asked the question, and just like that, I was unmoored from the safe harbor of my modern, cosmopolitan ways.

And as I tried to process the question — a question I had specifically come all this way to answer — I realized I didn't know how to think about it.  I felt myself casting about.  I don't know any of the people buried here, so I could hardly be concerned about the reputations of adjacent residents.  Which of the plots in this little cemetery are the desirable ones?  Just what does one look for in a cemetery plot?

In my mind, an eternal resting spot should lie in a country churchyard on a hill, overlooking pastures and lazy creeks, with dragonflies and mayflies buzzing in the golden summer air, a kind of Southern imitation of the Elysian Fields.  But this graveyard is nothing like that.  It's a plain municipal burial ground.  On one side are railroad tracks; on the other are small homes with chain-link fencing around their backyards.  In the back there's a commercial dumpster next to a new columbarium for cremated ashes.  Arlington National it is not.  So what should my criteria be for my eternal rest?

While I was thinking about this, I was self-conscious of the pointlessness of the question.  What did it matter where I chose?  Who would ever care?  This place is so far from my home it is unlikely my family will visit much.  Obviously once in the grave I personally would forget its defects.  And yet... if I was going to purchase plots, what else could I do but try to buy the right ones?  And there must be right ones, mustn't there?

Wendell pulled out a map of the cemetery's newer sections, showing all the plots and their owners.  This map was probably 18" tall and 36" wide, and was glued to multiple boards that folded over on themselves.  We looked at the rows of identically-sized little boxes, some with owners' surnames written in them.  The virgin soil was at the back of the cemetery, where no one was buried and the bulk of the available plots were located.  But that seemed too unsure to me.  What if plans went awry?  Without graves already present, it felt like I was buying an unbuilt condo off the developer's renderings.

There were a few trees; did I want to be under them?  There were some headstones already erected; should I seek out attractive neighbors?  There were plots near the little roadway; how about convenience for my mourners arriving in their cars?

As we wandered around, I noticed a beat-up car parked along the drive and two older women near it, attending to a huge grave marker.  They were obviously sisters, having similar faces and bodies, and almost identical hair (straight, waist-length and black, with bangs) and clothes (black t-shirts and dark jeans).  They were cleaning the tombstone, but they weren't simply sweeping and weeding and flowering; they were polishing and scrubbing this 8-foot long black marble monolith as if it were headed to a museum.

You'd think this little Southern tableau was lifted from a Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner short story — yet the women themselves looked more like domestics from Eastern Europe working in Queens: Yoknapatawpha meets Bulgaria by way of Astoria.  I mentioned them to Wendell.  He didn't remember their names but said they came frequently, honoring the memory of their father.

After some unsure gazing around, I saw on the map a little row of plots, four in total, right along the roadway where the road curved.  This little blank spot on the map leapt out at me.  This — why not this? — would be my final resting place.

I told Wendell my preference, and he asked me to fill out some papers.  He looked around for a pen, apologizing that he couldn't find one and getting a little embarrassed.  Unexpectedly, he began to cry: his wife had died a few months earlier, and the missing pen reminded him how at a loss in everything he was without her.  I expressed my condolences, and he gathered himself.  It was so touching to have this near-stranger cry in front of me over the loss of his wife, just as I planned for the death that would separate my wife and me.

Once I had completed the paperwork, I wrote out a check for the cost of the plots, and Wendell went to work on a receipt.  He got confused several times as he tried to properly record their identifying information.  Finally I got a little slip of paper naming the plots like tickets for a football game.  When humanity's great final concert comes (the Anti-Christ opening for the Second Coming), my family and I will be right there, ready and resting comfortably in Section K, Row 29, Plots 30-33.

At last it was time to go, and on the way out of the cemetery I paused by my father's gravestone.  On the reverse it says, "A man of vigor" — my father's defining characteristic.  What would mine say?

I am reminded of a tombstone found in the ruins of Holyrood Abbey, in Edinburgh.  

Here lies the body of THOMAS LOWES Esq.,
late of Ridley Hall in the County of Northumberland,

One instance among thousands of the uncertainty of human life and the instability of earthly possessions and enjoyments.

Born to ample property he for several years experienced a distressing reverse of fortune, and no sooner was he restored to his former affluence, than it pleased Divine Providence to withdraw this, together with his life.

READER, be thou taught by this, to seek those riches which never can fail, and those pleasures which are at God’s right hand for evermore, the gracious gift of God, and to be enjoyed through faith in JESUS CHRIST, our Savior.

An only Daughter, over whom the deceased had long watched with the tenderest care, and many friends who admired his liberal and generous mind unite in deploring his loss.

He departed this life on the 18th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1812 and in the 61st year of his age.

You would never see such a tombstone today.  Formal grieving has declined so much, as our world becomes more focused on technology and youth and the future.  People don't want to spend money carving morbid, backwards thoughts into stones no one will ever see.  They opt for cremation or bare slabs, no comments and no cost.

Or are we cowards, afraid to put in stone forever a sentiment that all-too-often looks hackneyed or treacly or insincere — or even damning with faint praise?  What does that say about how little our lives stand for?  I hope my executors have the courage to commit their thoughts to eternity with me... though I shall have to be careful in selecting my executors.

If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you.  Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.