The Long View

Tending to Endings (sixty-eight)

I carry my camp chair to the circle of people sitting in the sun among gravestones. There is a large group beneath the shady oak, too, but this is June and the temperature is more Boise spring than summer. Dry Creek Cemetery is only blocks from my house and adjoined to Veterans Cemetery which I can locate from the U.S. flag flying atop the hill, every time I walk my regular trail loop behind my house.

Once, a few years ago, the summer after my mother’s death, I was about halfway through the canyon when I heard the sound of a solo bugle playing “Taps” coming from beyond the ridge. I stopped, listened knowing this was for some soldier, yes, and also for my mother. Mom was a peace activist, but even she was moved by “Taps” and would sing the words, which she remembered from her days at summer camp. In the months after my mother’s death, she was with me on every walk, and I would see each songbird and insect and wildflower as though through her eyes.

As I stood, something came up behind me on the trail, I assumed a mountain biker, but when I turned, it was a young buck. I’d never seen a deer in the canyon on one of my walks (and haven’t since), though I’d recently discovered one eating breakfast at our apricot tree. I wondered what a deer was doing out on a trail in the heat of the day on the last week of July. He stepped over some sage and then stood a few yards off, both of us giving our full attention to the song. When the last note hung in the air, the deer leapt off into a neighbor’s backyard, and I continued my hike through the canyon, my mom as present with me as she has ever been.

So, I have a relationship with Dry Creek Cemetery, and yet, I have only been inside these gates a handful of times to attend services.

Usually Death Cafés are held quarterly but, like many gatherings, they have been on hiatus since the start of the pandemic. Now, about twelve of us sit and chat, waiting for the official start, and I feel calm and peaceful among the tombstones.

I wonder when that change happened? When did graveyards cease being scary? As a child they made my skin tingle and I dutifully, superstitiously, held my breath so I would not be the first one in the car to die when, whenever we passed a cemetery. As a teenager they were the settings for horror films and scary stories. Now, cemeteries settle me, give me perspective.

One of the first times I remember noticing this change was not in a graveyard per se, but while backpacking through the canyons of southern Utah and coming upon remnants of kitchens of people from ancient times in alcoves. I thought, This is us! All I worry about, and this is where our bones will be. Bones and maybe shards of some of the things we made, mere fragments from which to imagine a story.

Why that insight was reassuring to me at that time, I can’t quite explain. I am fond of existing. Maybe in my older age I am just more aware of the benefits, the whoosh of freedom and release, when I recognize all that is not mine to worry about or control or carry. All that will outlast me. And then, the other side of that knowing, what is mine right now, the miracle and the rarity of it. In recent years, I find myself wanting to hone that perspective of the long view, to keep it close at hand like some smooth polished stone.

Tending to Endings is partly an attempt to hold that perspective, I suppose, to remember what I have at hand and its worth. And, of course, it is also an attempt to learn more about the stage of life I avoided thinking or talking about for most of my life.

Death Cafés were started in England for some of the same reasons, and thirty-two months ago I attended my first one in Boise and wrote about it in the first two installments of this series. It felt good to be back this June, sitting in the grass at Dry Creek listening to stories about death. My circle included a social work student in his twenties and a man in his eighties who had technically died twice already and a woman who had recently sat vigil with her mom. I spoke about my mother’s dying with more distance this time, more perspective, though she is with me still. I continue to feel her smile spread across my face, for instance, when I see a preschooler crouch to inspect a ladybug.

Throughout the evening, we laughed a lot and cried a little, which I’ve learned is typical of a Death Café. And afterwards, we folded up our camp chairs and carried them over the graves and between the tombstones, heading back into the sweet brevity of our lives.

The next Boise Death Cafe will be held at True North Yoga on September 16, from 6:30-8 pm. All are welcome. You can find more information at the Boise Death Cafe Fb page or email deathcafeboise@gmail.com.

More Resources

Cemetery scenes figure prominently and positively in the three recommendations I’ve included here: two fictional books and an audio essay. Each, narrator meditates on, yes, loss, but also what continues on after a big loss. In each case, cemeteries are rendered as a place for the living to find healing and perspective as well as a place to mourn.

Fresh Water for Flowers, by Valérie Perrin (translated by Hildegarde Serle).

This novel has been accused of being “too chock-full,” but I loved that about it! It is love story and mystery and bad relationship drama and a spiritual meditation and a family saga and a story about friendship and parenthood and finding home. All the life that can go in and out of a cemetery happens here, pulled taut through the voice of the caretaker, Violette.

The Last White Man, by Moshin Hamid.

This speculative fiction reflects on various forms of loss and the different ways humans in an unnamed city and country respond. Here is one passage from a time when the two central characters, Anders and Oona, visit the cemetery together:

They walked on, and Anders put his arm around Oona, and he suspected then that maybe there was something different about them, about Oona and him, and he thought that possibly they felt the dead as not everyone felt the dead, that some people hid from the dead, and tried not to think of them, but Anders and Oona did not do this, they felt the dead daily, hourly, as they lived their lives, and their feeling of the dead was important to them, and important part of what made up their particular way of living, and not to be hidden from, for it could not be hidden from, it could not be hidden from at all.

If you want a bit more before diving in, this interview with Hamid introduced me to the book in a more thorough way than some of the other media coverage and made me want to read it: “How Do We Face Loss with Dignity,” The Ezra Klein Show.

The Joy of Being an Unwilling Traveler through Life, by Maya Shanker.

While I was working on this post, I listened to an essay written by Dr. Maya Shankar which includes a scene where her father brings her to a cemetery as a way of offering perspective. Shankar is also the host of a A Slight Change of Plans, which is a podcast I listen to regularly and I suspect would appeal to many readers of this blog. This essay is found on the podcast, Meditative Stories.

Library Remodel!

Last week I spent some time refreshing my online library, starting with the titles related to end-of-life matters. I’ve added some images and briefly annotated each title with a few thoughts. The categories (nonfiction, fiction, poetry, podcasts, film…) now include five favorites related to Tending to Endings themes. I also have started an overflow page for those wanting to delve deeper in the stacks. I will continue to add to that list as I find more resources that seem relevant and helpful.

All of this is of course only a small, subjective sampling of the resources available on the topic, but I figure those who come here regularly might have similar reading taste and interests.

I hope you’ll visit soon and let me know what you think, both about the library and what would make it more useful, and also any suggestions you have in general for Tending to Endings. I plan to continue to write here about once a month. At the end of the year, I hope to make some small changes including broadening the scope of the series a little based on things I’ve learned along the way.

Please consider sending your thoughts about topics, frequency, style, length, organization or anything at all you think will make this better. Or, feel free to tell me things you want to stay the same, too. There is a comments field below, or you can also reach me at laura@laurastavoe.com. If it is your first time you are leaving a comment, it will appear after I approve it (just to save all of us from spam comments), but future comments will appear as soon as you post.

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