Shoulda Got Her a Mausoleum...

Where does one go to get a positive outlook on a headstone?  Well, I tried googling something to the effect of "coping with the placement of your kid's headstone".  Nothing came up but monument companies.  Well...let's think about this for a second.  Who would have anything better to say about headstones than the people who make their living selling them?

So I clicked on a few.  Here was one:  "it will remain for eternity paying tribute to the person buried beneath".  Immediately a horrible image came to my mind.  I shuddered.  Next, please.

"A monument adds beauty to an otherwise bleak grave."  Hmmm.  Otherwise bleak?  Because with the stone there with your firstborn's name engraved on it, it's no longer bleak, but jovial?  Next.

"A last act of kindness done for the deceased."  To me, that one just sounded like they wanted to shame someone into buying their stone.

And this last one:  "To give identity to an individual."  Ok, that was clearly the least horrible of the lot.  Cory would want to be remembered.  Don't we all?

One company trotted out the logic that designing your loved one's marker and/or choosing their epitaph helps you make that most difficult transition from grieving to remembrance.  I sat for the longest time and considered this, one knee under my chin and a hand over one eye.  To go backward in time was to be that woman again, lost in shock, dropping to the ground at each stage of the horrible mess- the road, the funeral home, the prospective cemeteries.

 Had sketching out a symbol of my love for her, the way I saw her as a representational object, moved me from grief to remembrance?  Not even close, friends and neighbors.  This second year in, without the distraction of her art being shown or traveling across the ocean, I am only too aware that I am still grieving deep and wide.

So what did choosing her stone mean to me?  It represented to me all that she had been:  beautiful, unique, strong, unwavering in her determination to stand tall despite the storm raging around her and inside her.  This monument was as tall as I could possibly afford, and actually much more than I could afford, if truth be told.  It had to cover as much space in this world as possible.  You see, she had meant the world to me, and this hunk of stone was symbolic of all she had been and done.  She'd moved mountains; shouldn't she have one to call her own?

Even six feet tall, it could not and does not hold all my love for her within it.  For that, I'd need an entire room, full of patched together stonework-both flawed and lovely- cool when you stepped inside, and intensely quiet so when I whispered, "Baby, I'm here.", I'd hear the echo come back to me.

I should have gotten her a mausoleum.  That's what she deserved.