Six Feet Up

I'm sure that we've all been in graveyards at some point. When I was younger and living in the city, I enjoyed driving and walking around Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. It was an oasis in the city. I was always struck by the number of mausoleums there. I never could remember the names of the people inside these structures, with one exception, Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Yet, I suspect that most of those who erected a mausoleum there did so in the expectation that they would be recognized and acknowledged as someone important after their death. And they probably were recognized for a few years. But, eventually, almost all of us are forgotten, particularly if our claim to fame is wealth.

There appears to be a boomlet in mausoleums now. One builder of cemetery monuments sold 2,000 mausoleums last year, versus maybe 65 in the '80s. A cemetery in Daytona has sold - at $400,000 per - six of the fifteen mausoleums it built two years ago. The selling pitch for this development is "The mausoleum says I'm really significant in the world, I think I'm really significant to my family."

Of course, we all have the right to spend our money as we see fit. On Martha's Vineyard, many spend it on huge houses in which they may spend two months a year. It is likely that these same people would want a huge grave as well. I think that they would be more likely to remembered if they gave to charity the money they spend on ornate tributes to themselves.