Architects of Their Death
If—as Edmond Haraucourt wrote in Rondel de l’adieu (1890)—«[t]o leave is to die a little», it is also true that to die means to leave this world and, also, start preparing for what will (may) be right after the last breath. For a surprising number of people, that means to prepare for death by purchasing a plot in a cemetery, supervising to the construction of the monument, choosing the materials, the symbols, the epitaph... in one word, building a «last home» for them and, often, for their families. As part of anthropological research carried out in cemeteries in Italy, the United States and Brazil, we met with some of these individuals who decided to spend their last months of life buying, decorating, and personalizing their own graves. Whether one does this to make his/her last wishes and dreams come true—before it is too late and not trusting that others will do it—or, simply as a distraction from their disease and the deterioration of their body, the result is often the same: in the form of a chapel, a bust, a little garden, a funerary picture, and inside these spaces—cemeteries—as they learn to love every day more, these people think about death in constructive and often artistic ways. It is above all a way of not being subjected to death; on the contrary, they learn to know better and even master death, transforming it into a work of art or just a comfortable space of memory.