We’ve had a long, slow spring here in Ohio this year. Oh, there have been a few summerlike days here and there, but mostly the weather has been cool and often rainy, more like mid-April than early June. As a result, the peony bushes in my parents’ yard stayed shut tight for the federal Me­mo­ri­al Day but opened in time for the traditional Me­mo­ri­al Day on May 31.

Memorial Day, which began as Decoration Day following the Civil War, is still a big deal in our area. In the weekends leading up to the end of May, you see families all over cemeteries -- weeding, mulching, cleaning, and freshening gravesites.

My husband Warren and I had paid a visit to our town cemetery, Oak Grove, earlier in the week. Oak Grove dates back to 1851 and is a prime example of a mid-nineteenth cen­tu­ry “park” cemetery. We placed flags on his parents’ grave, one for his father, who served in World War II in the Army, and one for his mother, who served in the Red Cross over­seas in the same war.

A week later, we accompanied my parents to two cemeteries out of town. One, just a few miles away, is a sleepy, overgrown, little country cemetery, now not used, in which some of my mother’s family are buried.

The second stop was the large, open cemetery, a few more miles into the countryside, in which my father’s parents and my parents’ infant daughter are buried. That second cemetery, Green Mound, spreads out over a series of small knolls.

The old township school building used to stand next to Green Mound. Although it was torn down some years ago, the ball fields remain. On the sunny afternoon we were there, a game was in progress, and you could hear the calls of the players and an occasional “thonk” of a bat.

I have been coming to this cemetery since I was a very small child. We visited it a lot when I was growing up; it was on the route to and from my grandparents’ nearby farm. Although I didn’t realize it then, I now ap­pre­ci­ate how very much my mother missed her baby, who had died suddenly at three months. While my parents took the time to clean the headstone or just stand silently, arms around each other, my brothers and I would use the time as opportunities to read nearby headstones. Visiting the cemetery was not a macabre ex­per­i­ence, but a natural part of life.

Over a half century later, Green Mound is slowly filling with family friends and former clients. I do not have to look very far to see someone I knew. Eventually both my parents and my aunt Ginger will also be here.

As we drove away this year, I said to Warren, “I want to be buried here with friends, with sunshine, where I am comfortable. I want to be buried where you can hear a baseball game.”

Warren and I have not talked a lot about what happens after I die. (Given the myeloma, I feel comfortable projecting I will die first, short of a catastrophic accident.) But he didn’t blink. “Why not Oak Grove? You can hear trains there.”

That was the end of the conversation for now.

Warren and I do not often talk about the details attending death, or what I think of as the aftermath of death. We have talked some about dying, about my wishes with regard to palliative care, stopping treatment, and remaining at home, but we have not spent much time on what comes after. He knows I want a memorial service, not a funeral. He wasn’t surprised to hear that I plan on writing my own obituary. We have talked about my funding the performance of the Nimrod movement ^[1] from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations at a symphony concert after my death.

But the disposition of the remains? We haven’t spent much time on that topic. We both assume we will be cremated, although I am now watching to see if Ohio will change its laws to allow for alkaline hydrolysis (“bio-cremation”). Warren has expressed a desire that our ashes be buried together. I also have adult sons in Oregon who may want to sprinkle a piece of me out there. And I always was fond of water: the oceans, the Great Lakes, rivers, small creeks.

I may just end up all over the place. I certainly am all over right now as I think about it.

Anymore, the question of where to scatter the remains is limitless. Scattered atop a mountain? Sent up in fireworks? Thrown into the Ganges? It can be arranged (for a price, admittedly).

Decisions, decisions.

The Revlimid ^[2] (lenalidomide) I began back in February has shoved my myeloma back into remission. After four full rounds, either the side effects are less onerous or else I have grown more tolerant of them. It is likely a combination of both. But I don’t kid myself: I know what myeloma is (incurable, terminal), and I sense that the current treatment, let alone those that went before, is taking a slow toll on my body.

So I really should write at least a rough draft of my obituary. I probably ought to update my will, which I also keep meaning to do.

And I really, really need to figure out where on (and in) earth I’ll end up.