Reflections on Death on Mother's Day

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Either my mother is dead, or she has successfully avoided me since November 9, 2002.  So every Mother’s Day, I think about my mother, her death, and my own death.

I am not planning to die soon, but you never know the Grim Reaper’s plans:

“C’mon Gary, it is your time,” says the Grim Reaper.
“No!  No!  Wait!  I’m in the middle of doing laundry.  Can you come back in twenty years?”
“No.”

And so someone else will have to finish my laundry and figure out how to get it to me.

I love walking through cemeteries and reading the tombstones—especially the old tombstones.  These tombstones are so old, the weather has worn most of the words away.  I have to guess at what the words said.  And then I wonder about the people below the tombstones.  What were their problems?  What were their sorrows?  What were their joys?

When I die, I want to be buried so I can grow a tombstone.  And many years after I am dead, I want people to pass by my tombstone and try to read the weather-worn words.  I want people to pause and reflect, “What were his problems?  What were his sorrows?  What were his joys?”  If they get answers to these questions, then let the people travel back in time and tell me.

Happy Mother’s Day, Ma, wherever you are!

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