I’m lying in a hospital bed, not near death as far as I know - just 12 weeks of physical therapy for my new knee and tibial and femoral stabilizer rods, and had to read this wondrous piece as soon as it arrived in my email account.
As I read through I thought of a local cemetery in the tiny Indiana town where I live. Every gravestone but two are slabs of granite and other stones, many lovingly tended. A very American cemetary.
The other two are carved tree trunks. One looks like a real tree down to the bark etched in stone; the other twice as tall and wide festooned with creatures, a butterfly, rabbit, a beetle and others, and items that meant something to the person they represent - an open book, a pair of glasses and other human made objects. The first is about 4’7” tall and the other over 6’ tall and twice as round as the first. The deceased names are small, not what first captures the eye.
These two are works of art and never fail to make me wonder what the people were like.
In a cemetery near Cambridge England I was moved by an inscription that read “mathematician, wife, mother, grandmother” from an era that largely excluded the latter from the former. I lost the scrap of paper with the name and dates, but the important part stayed in my memory.
I have stumbled upon old family gravesites while hiking through NY, NJ and MA, as some of their best state parks are old family estates. Many of their crooked, broken headstones, dating back to the 17th and 18th Centuries, are completely smooth, the names and dates worn away by the northeast weathering. They were prominent, wealthy people in their lifetimes, but so many generations later, there is no one left with any emotional connection to their existence. Today’s use of granite, far more resilient than limestone, is a better record keeper and engraving a more meaningful idea of who a person was could spark more of an emotional connection, even to total strangers centuries later. In today’s world, we certainly need more glimpses into the humanity or souls of people. I have survived being orphaned as a child, chronic illness that nearly killed me three times, 11 surgeries, a terrorist attack, cancer (twice), divorce and the loss of my family. But I don’t want to be remembered for any of that. Although I prefer cremation, I’ll take a shot at my epitaph: “I have no idea why God put me on this earth, but now I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Here below are the ashes of a man who had the habit of putting everything off until tomorrow. But in his last days he improved, and did actually die on 31 January 1972.
Your piece made me recall my grandfather who was an avid outdoorsman. The family did not believe in cremation so he knew he would be buried, but he requested a plot in the cemetery under a pine tree. He wanted to “feed” the pine tree and asked that when people visited his grave they look at the pine tree and not the gravestone. So, I thought, the embalming and coffin really denied him his final wish. I have had friends who died and requested their ashes to be scattered in places they loved - one on the slopes of Mt Washington and the other in Olympic National Park. This made their remains quite literally integrated into a landscape they loved. I find that practice very moving and wonder if, at certain iconic places, a formal means of commemorating those who scatter ashes there such as a library or small memorial with names and biographies or personal comments might be very meaningful to friends and relatives and posterity.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing. Yes, one need not preclude the other. I personally don't think one needs to be buried somewhere to leave a physical marker on the planet.
Ah, Brian, this struck a note. My late father was in the business of carving gravestones and on his countless visits to cemeteries (mostly in Michigan and Wisconsin) he snapped many a photo of outstanding designs, as well as inscriptions. “I told them I was sick” seems to be a popular one. I’m inspired to look through dad’s photo collection and to ponder what trace I would like to leave, if any.
Interesting! Those "I told you I was sick" graves are, I believe, all based on Spike Milligan's gravestone. Obviously, it's an intensely personal choice, but I feel sad that so much of what people choose is just because it's sort of the default, not because it's how they would prefer to be remembered.
Very true. It seems we in America, at least, have been conditioned to be so sober and somber about death that we actually let these carved expressions erase us - just as you said, we become nothing more than a birthdate and death date.
What a joyful way to celebrate a life. I intend to have 3d printed hummingbirds buzz across mine when the time comes their iridescent plumage glinting in the sun and hopefully bringing a bit of joy to those standing on my "man" boobs.
Wallace’s beautiful grave reminded me of the grave of astronomer Urbane Le Verrier in Montparnasse cemetery, Paris. A large celestial globe sits atop a limestone plinth, honouring his prediction of the existence and precise location of the planet Neptune using only a pen. A fitting shrine to the beauty and power of Newtonian mechanics.
We scattered my mom's ashes off the buoy in front of our summer house, on Puget Sound. She had the proud accomplishment of catching a 17 pound salmon off that buoy, a huge fish for that time and place (back in the getting polluted days of the Sound). Across the sound, freighters pass, their wakes reaching our beach.
So I wrote a poem. She has no gravestone, nor services, and the poem is her epitaph. Will it outlive ME? Well, nothing on the internet dies, right? So here it is, and it will live as long as your website lets it.
The lines of dots aren't in the original, but they are the only way to preserve line breaks in comments.
No Services at Her Request
--G.B. 1912-1993
When unquiet waters push up over the cuffs of our grey cords,
and the pain of making too many promises erodes
..........like a cliff edge searching for the shells
of its beginnings, and waves roll down the beach from the point,
........uncurling the slow departure of freighters,
.
when white banded stones and the rounded shards of clam shells
cut crescents into our arches and the seaweed wavers
................between letting go and holding fast
and cold salt whitens our ankles with tatters of numbness
................welcome as the great migrations of eels,
'
;
we shove the dinghy out, and deep beneath the first buoy of spring
where relentless currents tumble fine sand over the drop-off
.................and crabs hulk stolen bodies between sparse
boulders, the delicate fans of barnacles feeding, the wary
.................seventeen-pound salmon lifts her mouth
'
. ................. to the smoke, the drifting cloud of you,
I’m only 38 (I’ll be 39 in the fall), but I’ve already figured out which Catholic cemetery I want to be buried in after I inevitably pass away someday, whenever that happens. I’ll let my loved ones decide on the casket, but I’ll pre plan the funeral Mass. Now I’m an orthodox Catholic, so I don’t think death is the end.
Cremation in the Catholic Church is allowed but it is strongly discouraged, and the ashes have to be buried in a cemetery plot in an urn if it is done. I personally hate cremation because I think it interferes with the grieving process because you don’t have a corpse to pray next to after someone passes away.
There is actually a custom in the Catholic Church of Mass being celebrated in cemeteries on November 2, All Souls Day, and also for Catholics to visit the cemetery or cemeteries where their friends or family members are buried.
Yes, obviously for those who are devout, there are rules that would preclude more unusual grave practices -- I'm just brainstorming ways to convey meaning for those large numbers of people who feel less constrained by the rules of religious burials. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I’ve already lost a friend in his 20s to a freak infection and one of my law school classmates died by suicide, and I’ve attended many more funerals than I expected I would have by this time in my life, so death is something I have had a lot of occasions to think about.
Wonderful! You may recall Spike Milligan’s novella, “Puckoon” premised on how tea time rushed the final decision on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland causing it to divide the village of Puckoon from its cemetery.
I also recommend “Permanent Parisians” a guide to Paris cemeteries.
Another fine post, Brian. Like the signal monument to Alfred Russel Wallace, your substack rises above a hum of barely differing, buzzing voices with its insight and personality. Bravo!! PS: you will adore Havana’s necropolis.
Why the need to leave anything physical behind, on a planet with 8 billion people and not enough room for wasteful cemeteries? Do good works that influence other people’s lives and what you have done will live beyond you, without trashing the planet. Cremation is a good option, because someone can immediately start participating in the circle of life. A better option may be composting, which has a much lower carbon footprint.
I don't think there needs to be a carbon footprint, one could even do this with natural burials/composting. I just like the idea that if people wish to leave something behind, a marker should be more thoughtful and meaningful than they currently are.
I’m lying in a hospital bed, not near death as far as I know - just 12 weeks of physical therapy for my new knee and tibial and femoral stabilizer rods, and had to read this wondrous piece as soon as it arrived in my email account.
As I read through I thought of a local cemetery in the tiny Indiana town where I live. Every gravestone but two are slabs of granite and other stones, many lovingly tended. A very American cemetary.
The other two are carved tree trunks. One looks like a real tree down to the bark etched in stone; the other twice as tall and wide festooned with creatures, a butterfly, rabbit, a beetle and others, and items that meant something to the person they represent - an open book, a pair of glasses and other human made objects. The first is about 4’7” tall and the other over 6’ tall and twice as round as the first. The deceased names are small, not what first captures the eye.
These two are works of art and never fail to make me wonder what the people were like.
How lovely. Thanks for sharing -- and get well soon!
Thank you kindly!
In a cemetery near Cambridge England I was moved by an inscription that read “mathematician, wife, mother, grandmother” from an era that largely excluded the latter from the former. I lost the scrap of paper with the name and dates, but the important part stayed in my memory.
I have stumbled upon old family gravesites while hiking through NY, NJ and MA, as some of their best state parks are old family estates. Many of their crooked, broken headstones, dating back to the 17th and 18th Centuries, are completely smooth, the names and dates worn away by the northeast weathering. They were prominent, wealthy people in their lifetimes, but so many generations later, there is no one left with any emotional connection to their existence. Today’s use of granite, far more resilient than limestone, is a better record keeper and engraving a more meaningful idea of who a person was could spark more of an emotional connection, even to total strangers centuries later. In today’s world, we certainly need more glimpses into the humanity or souls of people. I have survived being orphaned as a child, chronic illness that nearly killed me three times, 11 surgeries, a terrorist attack, cancer (twice), divorce and the loss of my family. But I don’t want to be remembered for any of that. Although I prefer cremation, I’ll take a shot at my epitaph: “I have no idea why God put me on this earth, but now I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Bravo! (And very glad you survived all those harrowing brushes with death).
The humorous inscription by the Irish comedian reminds me of the inscription on the Swedish author Fritiof Nilsson Piraten (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritiof_Nilsson_Piraten) whose gravestone says:
Here below are the ashes of a man who had the habit of putting everything off until tomorrow. But in his last days he improved, and did actually die on 31 January 1972.
Your piece made me recall my grandfather who was an avid outdoorsman. The family did not believe in cremation so he knew he would be buried, but he requested a plot in the cemetery under a pine tree. He wanted to “feed” the pine tree and asked that when people visited his grave they look at the pine tree and not the gravestone. So, I thought, the embalming and coffin really denied him his final wish. I have had friends who died and requested their ashes to be scattered in places they loved - one on the slopes of Mt Washington and the other in Olympic National Park. This made their remains quite literally integrated into a landscape they loved. I find that practice very moving and wonder if, at certain iconic places, a formal means of commemorating those who scatter ashes there such as a library or small memorial with names and biographies or personal comments might be very meaningful to friends and relatives and posterity.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing. Yes, one need not preclude the other. I personally don't think one needs to be buried somewhere to leave a physical marker on the planet.
Ah, Brian, this struck a note. My late father was in the business of carving gravestones and on his countless visits to cemeteries (mostly in Michigan and Wisconsin) he snapped many a photo of outstanding designs, as well as inscriptions. “I told them I was sick” seems to be a popular one. I’m inspired to look through dad’s photo collection and to ponder what trace I would like to leave, if any.
Interesting! Those "I told you I was sick" graves are, I believe, all based on Spike Milligan's gravestone. Obviously, it's an intensely personal choice, but I feel sad that so much of what people choose is just because it's sort of the default, not because it's how they would prefer to be remembered.
Very true. It seems we in America, at least, have been conditioned to be so sober and somber about death that we actually let these carved expressions erase us - just as you said, we become nothing more than a birthdate and death date.
What a joyful way to celebrate a life. I intend to have 3d printed hummingbirds buzz across mine when the time comes their iridescent plumage glinting in the sun and hopefully bringing a bit of joy to those standing on my "man" boobs.
Ludwig Boltzmann’s grave has the equation for entropy, S=k logW. Seems appropriate.
I tried, but failed, to visit his grave when I was in Vienna. Next time!
I am thinking of the children under the rubble of Gaza. Now there is a gravesite that depicts our inhumanity.
Wallace’s beautiful grave reminded me of the grave of astronomer Urbane Le Verrier in Montparnasse cemetery, Paris. A large celestial globe sits atop a limestone plinth, honouring his prediction of the existence and precise location of the planet Neptune using only a pen. A fitting shrine to the beauty and power of Newtonian mechanics.
Very cool!
We scattered my mom's ashes off the buoy in front of our summer house, on Puget Sound. She had the proud accomplishment of catching a 17 pound salmon off that buoy, a huge fish for that time and place (back in the getting polluted days of the Sound). Across the sound, freighters pass, their wakes reaching our beach.
So I wrote a poem. She has no gravestone, nor services, and the poem is her epitaph. Will it outlive ME? Well, nothing on the internet dies, right? So here it is, and it will live as long as your website lets it.
The lines of dots aren't in the original, but they are the only way to preserve line breaks in comments.
No Services at Her Request
--G.B. 1912-1993
When unquiet waters push up over the cuffs of our grey cords,
and the pain of making too many promises erodes
..........like a cliff edge searching for the shells
of its beginnings, and waves roll down the beach from the point,
........uncurling the slow departure of freighters,
.
when white banded stones and the rounded shards of clam shells
cut crescents into our arches and the seaweed wavers
................between letting go and holding fast
and cold salt whitens our ankles with tatters of numbness
................welcome as the great migrations of eels,
'
;
we shove the dinghy out, and deep beneath the first buoy of spring
where relentless currents tumble fine sand over the drop-off
.................and crabs hulk stolen bodies between sparse
boulders, the delicate fans of barnacles feeding, the wary
.................seventeen-pound salmon lifts her mouth
'
. ................. to the smoke, the drifting cloud of you,
. ................settling towards home.
I’m only 38 (I’ll be 39 in the fall), but I’ve already figured out which Catholic cemetery I want to be buried in after I inevitably pass away someday, whenever that happens. I’ll let my loved ones decide on the casket, but I’ll pre plan the funeral Mass. Now I’m an orthodox Catholic, so I don’t think death is the end.
Cremation in the Catholic Church is allowed but it is strongly discouraged, and the ashes have to be buried in a cemetery plot in an urn if it is done. I personally hate cremation because I think it interferes with the grieving process because you don’t have a corpse to pray next to after someone passes away.
There is actually a custom in the Catholic Church of Mass being celebrated in cemeteries on November 2, All Souls Day, and also for Catholics to visit the cemetery or cemeteries where their friends or family members are buried.
Yes, obviously for those who are devout, there are rules that would preclude more unusual grave practices -- I'm just brainstorming ways to convey meaning for those large numbers of people who feel less constrained by the rules of religious burials. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I figured as much, I just thought I’d provide a Catholic perspective on the topic.
I’ve already lost a friend in his 20s to a freak infection and one of my law school classmates died by suicide, and I’ve attended many more funerals than I expected I would have by this time in my life, so death is something I have had a lot of occasions to think about.
Wonderful take, Brian!
Footnote #2? 'Gutter'?? Took no notice...prior to YOUR allusion.
A simple, appropriate one that captures the person:
" Jack Lemmon in"
Wonderful! You may recall Spike Milligan’s novella, “Puckoon” premised on how tea time rushed the final decision on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland causing it to divide the village of Puckoon from its cemetery.
I also recommend “Permanent Parisians” a guide to Paris cemeteries.
Another fine post, Brian. Like the signal monument to Alfred Russel Wallace, your substack rises above a hum of barely differing, buzzing voices with its insight and personality. Bravo!! PS: you will adore Havana’s necropolis.
Thank you! From Googling, it looks fascinating. I've never been to Cuba!
Why the need to leave anything physical behind, on a planet with 8 billion people and not enough room for wasteful cemeteries? Do good works that influence other people’s lives and what you have done will live beyond you, without trashing the planet. Cremation is a good option, because someone can immediately start participating in the circle of life. A better option may be composting, which has a much lower carbon footprint.
I don't think there needs to be a carbon footprint, one could even do this with natural burials/composting. I just like the idea that if people wish to leave something behind, a marker should be more thoughtful and meaningful than they currently are.