A Family Project (2022)

Summary

Then there was the question of where exactly to dig the grave. My property is near Hanging Rock and Moore’s Wall, beautiful exposed granite rising up out of the green foothills of North Carolina near the Virginia line. That same granite sits not far beneath the surface of my land, except for this one particular spot where I also have a vegetable garden. Mom was an avid gardener, and this spot also overlooks a mountainside of mature oak and beech with an understory of mountain laurel and rhododendron. We decided this would be a fitting resting place, and we would be unlikely to hit solid granite.Casket and gravesite solved, there remained the question of how to dig the grave. My brothers had some experience with this since they had helped dig the graves of our rural Alabama grandparents many years before. Depth of the grave was also unspecified by the county, and we were aware of the common “6 feet under” reference, so 6 feet it would be. John said we needed shovels with longer handles. My neighbor and handyman, Clifford, agreed. He was also on standby with his backhoe if we ran into a renegade boulder. He gave us more sage advice. “Dig it deep enough but not deeper than it needs to be. And don’t dig before it’s time.” So, we waited.There was one last logistical problem to consider. We didn’t know how long the digging would take. And it was August in North Carolina. I spent a restless night obsessing over how we would keep her body cool between the time she died and the moment we laid her in the ground. My worry was for naught. We had a big rain on Sunday; the ground softened. Death comes so slowly, and then it comes so fast. The Tuesday morning of her death, Jim was with Mom. I rose with Joni Mitchell’s “Sweet Bird” looping in my brain. We made grits and eggs and later went down to the creek to see if Sunday’s rain had left us any chanterelles. It had. While we walked and talked and foraged with our Aunt Ellen, two hospice aides — or were they angels? — bathed Mom, ...