burial Quotes

“I want to be buried in Clara’s Orchard . . . Yes, that’s my favor to you. It’s the kind of job you was made for, that nobody else could do or even try . . .”

“Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.”

“It does not matter where his body lies, for it is grass; but where his spirit is, it will be good to be.”

“I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn’t.”

“The burial took place amongst the other paupers’ graves in the walled cemetery behind our church. It was there the priest and I dug her grave, in water-laden clay. There was no coffin.”

“Thus the maid went from illness to illness until, one day, she died. Alfanhui and his master buried her in the garden with a headstone etched in vinegar saying: Selfless and Silent.”