A death in my extended family has me thinking about final resting places, their importance and value. On Saturday, my aunt was laid to rest next to her husband in Kentucky. She was born in the state, but lived much of her life in Ohio and Michigan. My cousins are scattered from Saginaw to Katonah to Cleveland to Washington, D.C. But now they are doubly bound to this plot of soil on the west side of Lexington.
What helps us decide where to end up? It is a complicated and intensely personal decision, of course, and it brings into high relief questions of place and belonging. Because even if we're scattered to the four winds or kept in a vase on the mantel, we still have to end up somewhere. It is our final decision, where we stop when we can roam no more.
This is Mozart's grave in Vienna, though there's a good chance the composer was interred elsewhere in this cemetery.