This cemetery not far from where I live is among the smallest cemeteries I’ve ever seen, not counting those in churchyards, although admittedly I’m no cemetery expert. I suppose I’m used to row after row of graves, filling all the available space, as far as the eye can see. Reminding us that there are always more dead than living, reminding us how far the dead go back in time.
To be fair, I’ve been used to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a large and ornate cemetery, really more of a Victorian sculpture park, designed by the same man who designed Central Park, back when Brooklyn was farmland and you needed to go all out to get people to want to be buried out there. Acres and acres of rolling hills, gently winding paths.
Now—as far as I know—Green-Wood is more or less full when it comes to grave sites, though I think you can still have your ashes placed in the mausoleum. I used to go there and write. “I have my spot,” I said to a writer friend, meaning a particular tree I liked to sit under. She thought I meant my final resting place.
Some of the markers at Green-Wood are indeed quite ornate—tombs with stained glass, elaborate statues, obelisks with their less-than-subtle phallic imagery. A common statue is a woman with an anchor, one finger pointed at the sky. This is said to represent hope.
Some of the graves at Green-Wood are dotted with a circular marker: Perpetual Care. Meaning, presumably, that the cemetery will take care of upkeep on these, well, perpetually. These won’t be left cracked or fallen over, or covered in moss. I’ve always been curious about this. Do you need to leave enough money to the cemetery that the upkeep is covered just out of the interest on it? Does the actual contract for perpetual care say that it’s truly perpetual, or is there perhaps, some sort of sunset clause? Speaking of which, just how perpetual is this care going to be? Presumably one day the cemetery will go the way of ancient ruins.
I thought about all this while wandering this local cemetery, although there wasn’t far to wander. But what fascinated me most was that the cemetery was only half full. The rear half of the cemetery stretched back, a wide open field.
I didn’t realize my sense of scarcity around space extended so far as scarcity of grave space. I’d always figured I’d be cremated, but now I wondered if part of that was out of some sort of sense of scarcity—a sense of “no room at the inn” when it came to space in the ground.
What other feelings of scarcity in life am I projecting onto my thoughts about death?
