Neighbors In Perpetuity

A few hours before this year’s Super Bowl I paid a visit to my father’s grave in suburban Detroit. He reached his final resting place in the fall of 2016, but he’s still the new guy: some of the headstones there date as far back as the early 1800s.

Cemeteries induce a reflective state in me, as they probably do in most people. How could they not? All about you is death. Some of the graves around my dad’s hold children, and others who died very young.

My father was in his eighties when he died. I did not jump for joy; far from it. But neither did I shed a serious tear. He had a long, full life and a successful career in his chosen field. His health had markedly declined. I think he was ready to go.

His earthly remains lie under a simple plaque. A voice in my head insists he should have something more stately, but another shouts down the first: nyet!

Some of the headstones around my dad are rather ostentatious, though certainly not all of them. About a year and a half ago one of the plainer ones caught my attention: the grave of a thirty-one year old woman. Thirty-one. My dad’s neighbor in perpetuity.

Her name was Andrea and she died in 2002. Next to her grave is a granite bench with heartbreaking inscriptions from her father and her son. There is also a curious slogan, “Enjoy the beach.” I can’t help but wonder if this is an error: wouldn’t enjoy the bench make more sense? Inviting you to sit a moment and take in the tranquility. Unless – unless – unless. (Yeah, I quibble.) [**]

In a way, the untimely death of this woman, unknown to me in life, has bothered me more than my dad’s death ever did. It bothers me the same way Gianna Bryant’s death bothers me: tragic and needlessly early. Kobe’s was tragic too, of course, but he at least had a full half-life. Gianna had all of it still before her, and Andrea had most of hers. No known cause of death in Andrea’s case, but she was too young to go.

But the end of days is the mystery we all face. No one wants the horror of a lingering death: the body’s gradual decline, and perhaps the mind’s, too. Better to have it quick and efficient. Dead before you hit the ground. If only we could choose.

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Here’s a related post.

[**] It happens! In Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynne Truss describes a headstone with an ill-placed apostrophe. She imagines the stonemason wavering for a moment – is this punctuation right? – before shrugging what the hell, and forever placing the error.