They have been with us,
Those we love.

They have lived and died by our side. How do we live with that now?
November is the month of remembrance for our dead. Services and memorials are held, and graves are decorated and visited. These days fulfil the mourning needs of many people. I have never been able to access this scheduled and localised mourning.

My dead are present in my thoughts and feelings, and I have access to them when something reminds me of them or when I want to. For example, in my house, I have a small table my parents had been made for themselves when they were a young married couple. When I see it, I can feel their joy at the unique piece they afforded, and they are very close to me.

This feeling of immediate connection is powerful when I pick up one of my wife’s pottery pieces. It is a small „pinch pot“ formed from a lump of clay by „pinching“ it between my thumb and fingers. When I hold it in my hand, I have the impression that I can feel my wife’s movements—an experience I have never had at a grave before.

My late wife felt the same way. We, therefore, decided many years ago that we wanted to be buried in a cemetery forest. And so we buried the urn with her ashes at the foot of a beech tree. Without a nameplate because that is not where she is.

She lives in what we think, feel and do.