Graceful Parenting in Austin

I’m going to take a month of from posting. I wrote about why on BlogHer. I hope y’all are having a great spring. We’ll talk again in May.

Love, Carol

I was on the phone with Gilbert from the Stasswender Memorial Company. He is an artist who does scluptures, but he also carves headstones. He offered me an exchange.

“An exchange?” I asked. “Do you mean for another headstone?” I had decided to not bury Grace’s ashes in a cemetery just a few days after I ordered the headstone and paid the deposit.

“Yes,” he replied. “You can do an exchange within thirty days.”

This reminded me of another unusual exchange. I had adopted a black and white cat named Sebastian from the city animal shelter and she died that night. I brought the cat back to the shelter, so they would know that the cat was probably sick before I adopted her. And they offered me an exchange; I could adopt another cat for free. But they also hadn’t done a cat exchange before, so managing the paperwork, delays and approvals wasn’t worth the $80.

The same was true with this exchange. Sure, someone else in my family could die within thirty days, but I was sure it wouldn’t be worth it. I decided the deposit was lost.

This wasn’t my only trouble. I was having trouble in general, with the whole idea of how my generation honors the dead…

One thing I knew was that the right home for Grace’s ashes was not behind my long sleeve shirts in my bottom drawer. That is where they had been for many months. Before that, she was with the office supplies, but I didn’t like running into her accidentally when I was just looking for a pen, so I moved her to my bottom drawer, with the long-sleeve shirts that I don’t wear often, so she had her own private space, but I would see her now and then.

My parents’ generation knew what to do. They knew to embalm the body and place it in a casket and bury it in a cemetary plot with a headstone etched with the name and dates. This is how things were done and it is comforting to have a way things are done when you need to be comforted.

But this didn’t feel right. It felt like I would be trying to preserve the body as if Grace might need it later. It felt strange for her body to take up space on the earth, a whole plot of land with a deed, land that couldn’t be used by living people anymore. It felt strange for there to be such a business about it, with fees for the land and headstone and placing of the headstone and burial of the ashes. And I wondered how the tradition of burying the dead in a casket in a plot with a headstone would hold up over time. Wouldn’t we eventually run out of space?

Blue Eyes and I had already broken with tradition by having Grace’s body cremated. Earlier, we had decided that we wanted to be cremated. For me, the decision was pretty much about the HBO special Six Feet Under. In telling the stories of a family-owned funeral home, I learned a lot about embalming and it wasn’t a very natural process at all. To return to ashes felt more natural to me. And this is what we chose for Grace.

But that wasn’t the only choice. Now we needed to choose what to do with the ashes. Blue Eyes felt less attached to the decision, so he let me decide, which was simpler and harder at the same time.

I thought of an urn in our living room, but I didn’t want to have a casual get-together and have someone ask and have to explaining something so personal.

I thought of an urn in the house in a hidden place, but I imagined the urn would get dusty and feel forgotten.

I thought of a private memorial park that would dedicate a tree to Grace, with her ashes buried at the foot of the tree, for only $6,000.

I thought of burying her ashes in our backyard, but we might move.

I thought of burying her ashes in a special place on public land, but the public might mind.

Six months after Grace passed away, we held a memorial service for her. Afterwards, we planted a tree for Grace in our back yard. A few months later, Blue Eye’s parents bought us a rock with ‘Grace’ carved in it and we placed this at the foot of the tree. We have a place to go at home when we want to be with Grace.

But, her ashes were still behind my long-sleeve shirts in my bottom drawer. Since I hadn’t found a good alternative, I started thinking about a cemetary again.

There was a cemetary near our house with pretty trees, wind chimes hanging from the tree branches and benches for sitting. We asked about burying ashes instead of a casket in a cemetery plot and they said that was fine. So that was my plan when I bought the cemetery plot and the headstone, but when the confirmation paperwork came in the mail, I changed my mind. It felt contrived and forced, to have a traditional cemetery plot and headstone with only the ashes in the ground. That is when I called Gilbert and he was understanding, but not THAT understanding, but that was all right.

I had stopped trying to find an answer one day when my family and I were walking on the trails around Lady Bird Lake…

We liked watching the people, young and old, fit and not-so-fit, all sharing the same place. We liked the contrast of the downtown skyline and the natural trees and birds and river. There is an easy and generous spirit about Lady Bird Lake and as I was thinking this, I thought, why not bury Grace here?

Oh, no! This is a terrible idea! Because, for one thing, what if everyone in town wanted to bury the ashes of their loved ones at Lady Bird Lake? Maybe on Sunday afternoons, instead of joggers and parents with babies in strollers, you would see families with shovels and small containers. What if they all picked the same spot? What if the same flower bed kept getting dug up? What if someone from the city comes the next day to change out the flower beds and he wonders why the dirt is looking a little gray?

In one way, it seemed so natural for the Grace’s ashes to return to the earth become one with the cycle of life that would grow new grass or flowers. In another way, it seems like I’m asking too much of the city and its citizens who might not be so into this new idea of not using caskets and cemeteries.

What is the next generation’s answer to honoring the dead? Should we be tied down to an industry that sells spots for our loved ones along with related services and fees, or is there a way to find a home for them in nature, as one with the earth, in a responsible way?

I decided that I didn’t have to solve all of that and I didn’t have to take responsbility for my whole generation. The converstations will happen and answers will be found and eventually there will be the next comfortable place where famlies know what to do in difficult times.

Blue Eyes, Baby Girl and I found a spot off the main path overlooking the water. There was a bench and an arbor overhead, covered in wisteria. We sat for a while. As we started to head back, we saw a path of stones that lead to a small garden behind the bench. There was a stone marker there. It read “Twin Gardens.” This was the right place for our baby Grace.

Gilbert called me back after the 30 days had passed and he said, “You really don’t want a headstone, do you?” and I told him “No, I really don’t.” He said “OK, then, I hadn’t started on your headstone yet, so I’ll put all the money back on your card. I wish you well.” “Thank, you,” I said.

Blue Eyes, Baby Girl and I returned to Lady Bird Lake near the one-year anniversary of Grace’s birth and death. We went on a Saturday night at dusk when there was still a little light and not very many joggers. We found a spot near the stone marker and buried Grace’s ashes there. Blue Eyes and I read prayers from Grace’s service. Baby Girl slept in her stroller. We spent some time there, Blue Eyes and I with our twin baby girls, one still with us and another resting in peace, at last.

(Twin Gardens a few days later.)