I've never really got why people want gravestones. They're obviously very important to some, to have place to go where people can contemplate that sort of thing

I've never really got why people want gravestones. They're obviously very important to some, to have place to go where people can contemplate that sort of thing, but to be remembered in the long-term as nothing more than a name taking up space seems very sad. There's a place where my family scatter our ashes, I don't know when it started but both the grandparents I knew are there. We go there after the funeral and plant a tree or a shrub or some flowers, whatever the person liked in life, and scatter the ashes. Some of them get carried off, others fall into the earth. For all I know there's probably nothing beyond this life, it feels right, like they're being freed to be part of the wind and the trees; the song of some greater existence. I've always found it more emotional than the actual funerals. The last time we went there was for my grandfather, we planted a small tree alongside my grandmother's.