Mortality

I volunteered to caption photos on the eGGSA database gravestone website, a huge tool for genealogists. My first cemetery is the memorial wall in Hermanus.

If you have ever been in Hermanus, you'd know that the community itself is largely made up of old people. Grandparents. With the younger family members usually joining their parents and grandparents during school holidays and over weekends. (Disclaimer : As the older people die or move to a retirement village, younger people are buying up the properties so the community age is slowly changing, and of course developers are buying up parcels of land all over the area and building multi level blocks of apartments.)

A few things I have noticed :

1 - When you are married for a very long time (45 years and more) and you die, your partner usually follows within 2 to 3 months.

2 - Sometimes age doesn't matter, especially if you are a woman and born in the first 15 years of the 1900s. You can be older than your husband.

3 - Our grandparents' generation has probably lived longer than we will. Even with a low life expectancy in the first few years of the 1900s.

4 - People my age are starting to die.

I've never really thought about the type of funeral I want or the epitaph, if I want one. I would not like to be buried, that I do know. A memorial stone in a garden of rememberance....I don't know if I want that either. For now, I've put it in my will that my ashes be scattered, that is if J&C or Himself end up honouring my wishes. Basically I don't want my body to rot in a grave.

I still like the idea of a Viking funeral though, no fuss, no mess, just a blaze of flames and it's done.