My father bought them long before anyone needed them. At the time, it must have seemed practical: husband and wife in the center, children beside them, leaving room enough for the family to remain together long after the noise of living had quieted. My mother arrived early to her resting place in 1996. My father joined her twenty years later in 2016.

Life, of course, rearranged the rest of us.

The husband I once promised forever to – became my former husband at the turn of the century. There were tears and anger and lawyers and the long ache that follows two people learning how not to be married anymore. But there were also our children, shared holidays, family parties, and milestones like bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, and shared grief when loved ones die. The kind of history that never fully packs its bags and leaves.

Years later, our children, now adults with families of their own, encouraged me to seek more… and unexpectedly and wonderfully, I fell in love again.

My new husband understood something important from the beginning: love doesn’t erase what came before it. Hearts are not houses where one family moves out so another can move in. Hearts are more like old gardens; every season leaves something rooted in the past while new blooms appear.

What I didn’t know was that for years, my former husband still imagined himself resting in that family plot beside us all. Eventually, after many honest conversations, some humorous, some bittersweet, I encouraged him to make new arrangements nearby us. In May of 2026, he purchased plots for himself, for our two children, and for their loving spouses.

And somehow, instead of sadness, those conversations brought peace.

None of us are particularly eager to be next. My husband and I laugh about that every time the subject comes up. But there is a certain comfort in speaking plainly about mortality. In knowing where we belong. In sparing the people we love from difficult decisions made in the fog of grief. Making those arrangements ahead of time is, in its own quiet way, one final act of love, a gift we leave our families before we leave ourselves. It’s what my father taught us to do.

Because once those practical matters are settled, life itself somehow feels more urgent and more precious. It reminds us to stop postponing joy. We can write letters that say what matters most. We can tell our children the stories they’ll someday wish they had asked about. We can take the time to climb the boulders while our legs still can, take the long walks, ride the boats, book the exotic trips, attend the simchas and the funerals… celebrate anniversaries and graduations and new babies. We can take the time to gather often and linger longer.

Make it count while we are all still here.

We can leave behind more than possessions or paperwork. Leave memories. Leave laughter. Leave traditions, recipes, photographs, wisdom, forgiveness, and stories that will be repeated around tables long after we’re gone. Leave a legacy of love sturdy enough to outlive us.

And in the end, isn’t that all everyone really wants?  Not immortality, only remembrance. A small patch of earth, familial ground, our names nearby. Love that changed forms but never entirely disappeared, lingering always.

Mature love makes room for complexity. My current husband and my former husband are not rivals in this story. They are different chapters of the same life, connected through me and through old and new families retaining the memories of what came before.

And someday, decades from now, perhaps great-grandchildren will wander among the stones, brushing grass from our names, introducing their own children to the people who came before them.

Here we are, they’ll say. This is our family.

And having loved deeply, lived fully, and prepared thoughtfully for the inevitable, perhaps we can finally rest in peace.

Shabbat Shalom