Friday, April 13, 2007

Cemetery Criteria: can you get there by bike?

My criteria in planning the funeral (choke! – I can hardly even say that) will be: What would Pop say? Meaning what would he say if he didn’t have Alzeimer’s. We have to sort of translate through the fog. These days he says a lot of things, and they don’t always match up. For instance he says he wants to be buried in his childhood home town in Colorado, which has a population of about 216 people, none of whom he’s had any contact with for at least fifty years – either because they have moved elsewhere or are no longer living. If we took him there today, we probably couldn’t scare up a single person who knew him. (He actually visited about 20 years ago, and the acquaintance base was pretty much zippo even then.)

This is a man who spends time composing epitaphs for his tombstone. Most of them are of a smarty-pants nature, and I don’t know if my mother will agree to have the words carved in stone. However, it’s clear that he expects visitors. I for one won’t be flying over to rural Colorado too often. But if he were around here, I’d drop by and have a picnic with him with reasonable frequency – especially if it’s right in the middle of town and I could get there on my bike. So that’s another point in favor of Lone Fir – bike accessible.

I hope to look at some other options this weekend.

I’m not going to be publishing details about the funeral planning because it feels too private – even though you don’t know my parents. However, I hope that someone out there will benefit from the general information findings I do publish in this blog. Maybe it will save someone some future headaches.

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