Maria and I walked in the cemetery this morning, we met James and Roxanna Bennett, who died in the early 1800’s. I do not dwell on getting older, or on death, but I do think about it from time to time, as many of us do when we get so much close to the end than the beginning. It is a different perspective, the place where the young and the old can never really meet.

When you are young, you cannot comprehend death and mortality, when you are beginning to be old, it pops up in your head from time to time. This is, I think healthy. I learned in my hospice work that people who shun death and never accept the idea of it seem to have the hardest time with it. I wish to age gracefully and to die gracefully.

Death is a part of life, I don’t want to wallow in it or hide from it.  It is what we all share, where we and all of the living things we love will go. It unites us and shapes our lives. I was a police reporter for some time, and met death often there, then in hospice, then when I had my open heart surgery.  I am not shocked or surprised by death, it can come at any time, in many forms. In the intensive care unit, I went to this very beautiful place, I think death was waiting for me there, we had a meeting, a kind of interview – death was actually a she –  and we both agreed that I should return to Maria and my life for a good while. She was warm, not at all frightening or menacing. She seemed to care about me, even love me. Not yet, we agreed, so much still to do. Love is strong, she said, more than you know.

I want to write about that trip when I can, I can’t quite yet.

I loved that James and Roxanne had their hands clasped on their marker in an eternal embrace. I wish to be cremated, so does Maria, I’d love for some of me to be in a small jar in her studio so she can talk to me and yell at me from time to time. And love me, too.

Seeing this tombstone though, made me feel a little differently. I thought for the first time that it might be nice to lie in this cemetery side by side, in a loving clasp for all time. Maria could design something quite wonderful and strange to go on the tombstone, she could sketch us walking together or holding hands, which we often do. Maria laughed, and said she loved the idea of both of us ending up as ashes, dust to dust, being scattered here and there. So do I really, but I like James and Roxanna, I have the feeling they loved one another very much.

I loved their hands, I will remember this marker, it seemed to speak of the purest love to me.