In August 1988, my mother died in Washington, D.C. — her second home after Rome — and made a very simple request: that she be buried in a leafy, quiet cemetery away from the madding crowd. I found just such a place, and she was laid to rest in a tranquil ceremony attended by only a few. In sum, all had gone well, as much as any death goes well.
This was not to last.
Five years later, my aunt died in New York City and asked to be buried in a quiet place, preferably close to my mother, “to keep souls close,” she said.
Though unfamiliar with godheads and souls, I knew I had the ideal solution: a plot not far from my mother’s tomb in the same manicured cemetery.
This is when best-laid plans went awry.
The cemetery had no more plots, nary a one, and all they could suggest was that my aunt — my father’s sister — be placed in the same spot as my mother, an improbable two-for-one gesture of family unity in which the tombstone would refer to both women.
I pondered this for some time, as inexpert as I was in souls and their rules of proximity.
If I lowered my aunt atop my mother, would my mother feel compressed and object, insisting eternity is for one and one only? Or would the two dead entities enjoy one another’s company?
If our bodies are mere vessels and the real stuff all about soul travel, where’s the rule book on compatibility? Can a soul become so annoyed that it barks at gravediggers, demanding relocation?
And what if my crusty aunt, never one to share, objected as I imagined my mother might, demanding a separate soul space for wandering, talking, flirting, navigating, and the like?
All this contemplation of course led me to consider the shape and substance of souls, their needs and demands, and, perhaps, their competitive instincts.
If our bodies are mere vessels and the real stuff all about soul travel, where’s the rule book on compatibility? Can a soul become so annoyed that it barks at gravediggers, demanding relocation? Or do souls grow so uppity they speak out (in their way) at the funerals of others, advocating for their rights?
And who intervenes to calm down wayward and anxious souls unable to grasp that the graveyard is full?
Questions aplenty, to be sure, but no answers.
I tried a few times to knock at God’s door, but since we’re strangers, he didn’t chip in. He never has in my regard.
Finally, I decided to do as the cemetery chief had suggested and place them in the same spot. My mother was “listed” on the bottom row, my aunt atop her. I watched as all this was done and felt pleased at the result. The place around them was as green and leafy as ever.
Have they made friends in these forty years? Have they fought? Have they cursed me for failing to respect casket-distancing, or some such? I don’t have a clue.
I do know I’ll be headed their way soon, but in the form of ashes dispersed. Do ashes have a soul, I wonder? Is the soul troubled by having to watch as the body, its trusty vessel, is burned to a crisp? Or is it busy burying its legend in the smoldering flecks?
Who knows. All I do know is that the human in all this protocol is dead forever, which would seem to me to moot most corpse-proximity debate.
Unless, that is, you insist on perceiving all this from the vantage point of a hard-core soul, making the act of pensive circulation, tombstones be damned (literally), central to postmortem mischief.
In which case, may God help me to figure out how it all works, though somehow I have a feeling He won’t.
