Finding a place to rest for eternity

SIR – Time waits for no man, so began a quest to find out where those who went before me are interred. Immediate parents and a granny have one grave all filled up, so it was Plan B which we had to pursue, in another graveyard, in another place.

I remember as a child – in the days when being able to afford a headstone was only for the better-off – we would stand near a bush overlooking the small cemetery after mass on a Sunday and say prayers in the general direction of where mother said her own parents were buried. Never a stone or indentifying mark from that day up to recently, a span of more than sixty years. So we set ourselves the task of finding that place where I’ll have my ashes planted when the time comes. The local burial records are lost, or burned as they say in some places, so it was a hit and miss option of about four graves which had a vacant look about them, and then where to stake the claim.

To do this, one had to pick out the most respectable-looking site and put the names of late family members on a cross or plaque, and if, after six months, no living soul tells you to get away from that place, then ownership of the plot is tentatively secured. It’s a bit of a lottery, but it costs a lot more than a scratch-card. But, hey, for the first time in their they might get to own something.

So far, so good and the follow-up arrangements may go without a hitch, kerbs and stone with names on securely etched. But I’m still waiting, as I’ve done all of my life, for an eviction notice to vacate the premises, which will no doubt arrive on the very day when my urn is about to be installed in a tiny corner, without ceremony,

taking up no room that could bother anyone.

Yet, for pure vindictiveness, an enemy who has been waiting at the gate could eventually take some perceived revenge and declare they want me out of their property, pronto! What’ll I do then, apart from haunting them and their descendants for all eternity? Now that sounds like a not-so-bad proposition if I can swing it. Feeling better already – life in the ol’ dog yet. Bring it on!

Robert Sullivan,

somewhere in Co Cork.