last words

I’ve always loved going through graveyards and reading inscriptions. Since I was a little girl I wondered what mine would be. Famous Lady Writer?  She saved the world?  I thought Beloved Wife and Mother was such a cliché.

Well, the Famous Lady Writer tried poetry and short stories and finished half a novel. Her newspaper column lasted five years. So did her second marriage.  This Beloved Wife and Mother turned out to be harder than it looked.  And my job directing The Milton Center? I couldn’t save it either.

Talk about lame headstones:

• She loved her children and her grandchildren.

• She was a pretty good gardener, except when it was hot or the mosquitoes were out.

• She wrote three pages every morning.

• She had a cute house.

• She helped start Tennessee’s first cohousing community, and if they needed an old person to interview, she was it.

• She gave money to lots of lost causes.

Seems like I was always starting over, trying to do something worthy of a pithy inscription.  Imagine reading a tombstone that said, “She tried to find herself,” and there you’d be, found.

After 50, my life got better and better, and my epitaph was a toss-up between "Always starting over” and “My cup runneth over.”

I’ve finally decided to be buried at Larkspur without a coffin or a headstone, where I can be outdoors without being bothered by the heat or mosquitoes.  My innards will feed the roots of grasses and flowers and trees and all sorts of creepy, crawly things, and I’ll sprout mushrooms to caress me.

Turns out I won't need an epitapth. A flat rock will mark the spot with only my name and dates. I asked John Christianberry why they didn't allow epitapths. He said, "Some people aren't kind."

I'll be starting over once again, and this time I won't need words.