Let's Go, Jane!

As we finished the last bites of our turkey, my 84-year-old father put on his serious face. “While I have you all together, I’d like you to know that your mom and I have secured a cemetery plot.” What followed was a lively conversation over apple pie and vanilla ice cream about what happens after death. We talked about the ecological impact of cemeteries, and of cremation. About the growing “green death” movement in which people are buried without embalming fluids and in biodegradable caskets. And about how some cemeteries are being “rewilded” as meadows.

My sister shared that she had recently listened to a podcast about human composting. There are now about a dozen states that allow human remains to be composted. When I die, I don’t want to be turned into ashes, I want to be turned into soil. I’d love nothing more than to enrich a shade garden, or sustain a native tree. Heck, just put me in the woods somewhere. I’m never more at peace than when I’m in a forest.

We contemplated how important it is to have an actual physical place for your surviving relatives to visit after your death. And when my dad insisted that it was extremely important to him, the next logical question was about how many times he has visited his own mother’s grave in the 35 years since she died (4 or 5), and his aunt’s Claire’s grave (never!).

His aunt, my great aunt, lived to be 97 years old. My dad and I were with her for her final hours, her frail body lying in a hospital bed, her breathing rapid and shallow, like a bird’s. We told her how much we loved her. We assured her that it was okay to let go, that she could be at peace. We spent the whole day with her, on what turned out to be her last day on earth. She passed a few hours after we left the hospital. It was the closest I’d ever been to death.

My family remembers Aunt Claire fondly and often. My sister’s middle name is Claire. Every year on Claire’s birthday we share stories about her in the family chat. As my parents are aging and their hearing and attention spans wane, I find myself recalling the times we took Claire to a restaurant and my sisters and I ended up holding our abdomens in silent giggles because she would change the topic in the middle of a conversation and leave us hanging. Her hearing was such that we could have two conversations going at once, a loud one that she was part of, and an under-the-breath one that only the rest of us could hear.

Aunt Claire died in 2001. We had a funeral for her in Connecticut, where she lived with her second husband Ken, and then her body was laid to rest with her first husband Eddie at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. It would be over a decade before any of us went to visit. 

One year my sister, Claire’s namesake, decided that she wanted to find Claire’s grave. She and some friends went to Woodlawn and wandered for hours, finally locating the plot. She was surprised to learn that there were actually eight relatives buried there – Claire, her first husband, her mother and uncle, and some older relatives going back to the 1800s. And to my sister’s surprise, Claire did not have a headstone.

The day after Thanksgiving, our group, ranging in age from 5 to 84, piled into two cars and made the 45-minute drive to Woodlawn Cemetery. Once there, we asked for directions and a kind cemetery employee hopped in his cart and drove us through the maze to find the section where our relatives are buried. We set out on foot and located the family plot.

It was an odd topic for a Thanksgiving meal, and an even odder family outing, but as our parents are in their 80s it seems that these conversations are becoming more frequent. Coming out of the holiday, I’ve been tasked with contacting the cemetery and seeing about placing a stone for our beloved Aunt Claire. I can’t say I will be visiting often, but I will be happy knowing that her name appears along with the rest of our relatives.