Guest Column
VIEW FROM THE PIER
- That’s the view from the pier.
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- (Herman Sillas, a San Clemente resident and L.A. attorney, can be found most early weekend mornings fishing at the pier.)
By Herman Sillas
Cora and I are at that stage in life where we recognize we have fewer years remaining than those we’ve already lived. Consequently, we don’t throw away cemetery advertisements anymore. We save them. In the meantime, we have engaged in discussions regarding our inevitable departure from earth. Planning your own funeral is about as pleasant as writing your will except you are not distributing assets only ashes or a body.
Long time married couples deal with their bodies as if they were one. That’s Cora and I. We’re trying to figure out whether to be buried or cremated. We haven’t made a decision yet. Nor have we made any decision as to where in San Clemente we want our remains to rest. Since Debbie, our oldest daughter, married into the Nell’s family which received a land grant from William Penn in the sixteen hundreds, she is assured of a free plot in the Nell’s family cemetery. Our loving son-in-law, Craig, has told Cora and me that we have a standing invitation to be buried there without charge. Cora nixed the Pennsylvania burial. I thought it was great, because future visitors would have wondered how a Spanish surname like Sillas landed in a William Penn land grant cemetery?
I have a thing about tombstones. This has come out in my discussions with Cora. During our dialog we assumed that we’d be buried together. Then the lawyer in me took over. I pointed out that if we didn’t die together, one of us would be a surviving spouse. I’ve seen too many tombstones with an engraved husband’s name, date of birth and death, and then a space for the wife’s name to be engraved when she passes away. The assumption of both spouses was that at the survivor’s death she would be buried with her deceased husband. Too many unfinished tombstones reveal that some fellows have been waiting for a long time for their respective wives. Where are they? Maybe some are still alive because their deceased husbands were much older than they. That’s possible but not probable. Maybe the wives lived to be more than a hundred years of age? That’s possible but not probable. The likelihood is that the wives are buried somewhere else. Maybe some really didn’t like their husbands and didn’t want to spend any more time with them dead or alive.
I suspect however, that a lot of them remarried and are lying with a new dead husband or may be alone waiting for their second husband to join them. In either event, there is a bunch of fellows in cemeteries with unfinished tombstones. I don’t have a problem with Cora remarrying after I’m gone. She should do whatever she wants to do to make her happy. I just don’t want people that I don’t know laughing at my grave site because I appear to be waiting for Cora and she ain’t coming. I had enough people laugh at me when I was alive. I don’t need them laughing at me when I’m dead.
So I came up with the revocable tombstone policy. Whoever goes first will have a tombstone with space for the living spouse, but if the survivor changes his or her mind about joining the deceased spouse, that’s okay. All the survivor needs to do is notify the cemetery where the deceased spouse lies. The cemetery would then be obligated to remove the unfinished tombstone and replace it with the sole name of the deceased lying in the ground. Then future observers would believe the deceased is peacefully resting and not waiting for anyone. I presented my idea to Cora. She looked at me as if I was nuts and said, "Whatever makes you happy while you’re alive, dear."
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