Taking it to the grave

   This overdue blog post is taken from one of the prompts from last week (note to self-don't make this a habit!). In part, I delayed writing this because it took some reflection to understand the conversations I had with my sister, boyfriend and another friend about what they would choose to include in my burial. Their comments were oddly humorous for such a morbid topic. I guess I can attribute that to surrounding myself with playful, silly people. My boyfriend and I talked to my sister over skype and we had an interesting conversation. My sister got really fixated on the lining of my coffin, even when I insisted that the question was less about the encasement, and more about grave goods. For some reason, it is really important to her that it have a "plush, cream lining". And apparently I should also have "nice fake flowers" because real ones would die. My boyfriend thought I should be buried barefoot but wearing a really nice watch...which is weird because I have never wore a watch except maybe when I was a kid. He also said I should be buried with all the books I've bought and never read. So cheeky.

  My first thought was that two of the people closest to me didn't really know me too well if they couldn't give me serious answers. But then I thought that maybe it's just a difficult thing to contemplate-that it is a certainty that most of us would prefer not think too much about. When I started to think of what I would want included in my burial (hypothetically, because I think I would go the way of cremation), I realized the complexity of the question. What is succinct enough to tell the story of a person's life through material remains? The only thing I know for certain, is that I would want one to be wearing one of my elephant pendants. When I asked my best friend what she thought I ought to have, she responded saying that it wouldn't make sense to have something buried that was of great sentimental value to my loved ones because they could never see it again. So maybe the question of which goods ought to become grave goods lies between the boundary of cherished and irreplaceable, in the eyes of those left behind.