[Prudence]

I think I want to be cremated, but I might change my mind. If I do get cremated, I'd want to be interred, not scattered. There's a cemetery off a rural highway in Iowa in the midst of corn and soybean fields. The first time I remember going there was when we went to bury my grandfather. It's just one horseshoe drive around and back to the highway. We were driving in and I was checking out the tombstones -- and I realized that a good many of them were my ancestors. This wasn't just a random cemetery, it was the Family Cemetery. It was eerie, but in a comforting way -- all those Bloods and Peters and Millers and Freels. I've been back once to visit my grandfather's headstone (it's great -- carved ears of corn) and once to bury my grandmother. I need to go back and see the headstone since they've added her name. It's such an odd but wonderful feeling to be there -- out on the plains, the sound of wind and the highway mixing with the sounds of crickets, surrounded by "my people." I could just sit there for hours talking to them all.

I want my decendants to have the same kind of place to go to and feel that sense of peace and belonging.