We Just Bought Our Gravestone
Why choosing our final resting place was actually a beautiful, practical celebration of life
Living With the End in Mind
I am a planner by nature. From daily routines to long-term goals, I like to have things in order. But my desire to plan extends beyond the logistics of daily life; as a student of Stoicism, I have long practiced the concept of Memento Mori—the practice of remembering that we will die.
To some, this might sound macabre or morbid. But the purpose of Memento Mori is not to dwell on death. The idea is to acknowledge the brevity of life so that we don’t cling to it out of fear, but rather celebrate every single moment because we never know when it’s going to end. I have tried to live by this principle my entire life, even before I knew there was a formal name for it.
Living with that awareness takes the taboo out of practical planning, so you won’t be surprised to know that several years ago, I started initiating discussions with my husband, David, about our final wishes. I don’t just mean trusts and living wills—we have all of that in place (which is a topic for another time).
What we sat down to discuss was where we wanted our final resting place to be, if we wanted one at all.
We explored every option. We considered the pros and cons of green burials, traditional casket burials, being cremated and having our ashes scattered to the wind, or having them brought somewhere deeply meaningful to us. And throughout the process, I kept forcing us to ask (and answer) the questions:
What is the ultimate goal here?
Who—or what—are we really solving for?
What are our core values?
Will those values actually be reflected in the choice we make?
End-of-Life Decisions for the Living
It was around this time that my mother was declining in a nursing home in New Jersey. Prior to her death, David and I spent a lot of time exploring what we wanted, not just for ourselves, but for her.
Fortunately, I wasn’t starting from scratch. My mother was not dissimilar to me; she was immensely practical. She already had her wills and trusts lined up, and she had long since added me to her bank accounts to make things as seamless as possible when the time came. More importantly, she was entirely open to discussing her death. More than a decade before she got sick or began to decline, we had a frank conversation about her final wishes, and I remain incredibly grateful for her willingness to go there with me.
We discussed that she wanted to be cremated.
We discussed the fact that her mother was buried in New Jersey, where my mother lived and where I’m from.
We discussed having her buried there, too.
But when we explored what we were actually solving for, I had to be honest and admit that it was unlikely that I would travel from California to New Jersey regularly to visit her grave. We agreed it was far more meaningful to have her ashes with me. Since my sister lives in Florida, splitting them was simply the most practical solution—because ultimately, these decisions aren't just for the dead. They are for the living.
As for what I would do with my portion of her ashes, my mother’s attitude was a breezy, “Whatever you want to do is fine.” We both agreed it was important for me to have somewhere to visit her, and we shared a laugh over the fact that keeping an urn on my fireplace felt a bit unsettling. I wanted a specific place to go.
A physical place. A permanent place. A marker. A memorial.
Finding Our Shared Space
Knowing I needed a physical destination for her turned out to be exactly what David and I needed to finalize our own plans. We realized we weren’t just looking for a resting place for my mother; we were looking for a single plot for the three of us.
Initially, we considered a green burial option where our ashes would be mingled with soil and planted at the base of a tree in a forest in Santa Cruz. But after contemplating that for a time, I realized, Who is going to visit us in Santa Cruz once we’re dead? We have no connection to Santa Cruz; it just happened to be where this particular “green cemetery” was.
Instead, our hearts pulled us close to home. We decided to look into Mountain View Cemetery right here in Oakland, California. We have lived in Oakland for the last thirty years, and despite all of its imperfections, we are deeply connected to this place—especially to the house and the street we live on.
We already loved Mountain View Cemetery. It is a stunning, historic space designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the visionary landscape architect who also designed Central Park in New York City. We walk there frequently with friends and with each other, wandering past the graves of California founders.
We initially assumed we’d buy a niche in a columbarium, but the above-ground wall felt disconnected and left barely enough room to engrave our names. We figured in-ground plots at such a historic cemetery would be sold out or far too expensive. To our surprise, they had affordable cremation plots available, meaning my mother, David, and I could all be buried together in a single plot.
We looked at a few spots and found one that was absolutely perfect. Sitting under a canopy of native oaks, it overlooks a peaceful resting place dedicated to Civil War soldiers. As a history enthusiast who happened to be reading Ulysses S. Grant’s biography at the time, it felt like kismet. We signed the paperwork and made it ours.
An Anchor for Our Mourning
Sadly, my mother died in April 2020 without friends or family by her side. The new coronavirus was raging, and I was unable to get on a plane to see her in her final days and hours. I remain grateful to the hospice nurse who was with her, holding her hand, as she drew her last breath.
As I shared in How We Heal: The Power of Grief Rituals, it is profoundly difficult to grieve when you are robbed of the normal mourning rituals that help us get to the other side of grief. But because we already had her physical resting place, we had somewhere to anchor our mourning. We did the best we could. I cobbled together a beautiful, makeshift service from afar, complete with a bagpiper (something she had requested) playing at the cemetery, attended by masked friends, and featuring readings from her friends across the country.
That was six years ago. And still, we have no marker.
The Weight of a Stone
I am not a procrastinator. I don’t put things off. Yet, for six years, I delayed ordering the actual stone. It wasn’t because I didn’t want it; the unfinished task had been hanging over my head the entire time. It was simply that the sheer weight of choosing a single design and inscription to authentically represent my mother, alongside David and me, felt paralyzing.
Of course, we could have just ordered a stone for my mother now, leaving our surviving loved ones to choose our inscription after David and I pass. But the truth is, I don’t want someone else deciding what to put on our stone, especially when it comes to representing the life we have so intentionally and consciously built with each other.
So, finally, we did it. We went to a local monument maker to pick out our stone.
While many of the standard options were imported from China or India, I asked if they had any stone native to California. They had just a couple of options from the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the deal was done. It is deeply meaningful that our final marker will be carved from the granite of our beloved home state, from the mountains we visit and love so much.
A Celebration of Life
We are now in the process of choosing the inscriptions. Deciding what I want to say for my mother has been relatively easy, as I’ve had six years to think about it. For David and me, the conversations about what we want our stone to say have been incredibly beautiful, meaningful, and joyful.
We are very close to a final decision, and I look forward to sharing what that is soon.
As the sixth anniversary of my mother’s passing approaches this April, I wanted to share this journey. This process is, at its core, a celebration of life.
David and I will be in Japan during the actual anniversary of her death. But upon our return, I am looking forward to receiving the stone. We plan to hold a small, private, and intentional ceremony with just the two of us to place the Sierra stone on the grave that we, too, will one day inhabit.
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Beautiful, Colleen.
It’s good to decide and plan well In advance , so that the whole family knows your plans .We decided a long time ago ,that when we die there will be no celebration , wake or marker . Just a pure cremation ,where the body is collected and ashes returned without anyone being present at any part of it . We’ve just lost both of our beloved pets in the last five months , and which ever one of us dies last will be cremated with the urn of the other and both pets .