{"id":33872,"date":"2021-07-03T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-03T07:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=33872"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:46:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:46:57","slug":"my-grave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/my-grave\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s a Dandelion Growing on My Grave"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"my<\/a>
Daughter Christina and son Peter went with me to Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma last month. Jon will be buried there next to his parents and his sister — Peter is pointing to the spot. I expect to wind up there as well, when I’m good and ready. Jon and I will be in illustrious company<\/a> at Cypress Lawn. Newspaper notables Charles de Young, William Randolph Hearst and Lincoln Steffens<\/a> are there. So are baseball greats Lefty O’Doul and Willie McCovey. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The kids and I drove over to Colma last month to pick out a gravesite for Jon. And one for me. Jon’s spot looked good. It was right next to his sister. As for me — there was a dandelion growing on my grave.<\/p>\n

It was a tenacious weed, built to last, splayed out flat, and insinuating itself among the blades of the neighboring grass, out of reach of the mower.<\/p>\n

It was a tough guy, that dandelion. It wasn’t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

I liked it.<\/p>\n

With a little luck the dandelion will be there many years hence, when the cemetery folks come around with their shovels to dig a hole for me.<\/p>\n

Next to Jon. Underneath a dandelion.<\/p>\n

\"Dandelion-growing-in-a-cemetery<\/a>
Here’s the dandelion growing on my grave site. Under the right conditions, by some estimates, a dandelion can live up to thirteen years<\/a>. If that’s the case, I’d like to outlive this particular weed. But if I don’t, it will be good, if humble, company in the ground over there in Colma.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happy Fourth of July. For some old-fashioned patriotism, go to “The American Flag Is Flying Over My Left-Wing, Elitist, San Francisco Bay Area Neighborhood Today. Here’s Why.”<\/a>\u00a0 And here’s a patriotic guest post from Jon: “Does ‘Under God’ Belong in the Pledge of Allegiance?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"dandelion-growing-proudly-in-a-garden\"<\/a>
This is what a dandelion looks like when not flattened by a cemetery lawn mower. I discovered this one growing — planted? — in a front yard in Piedmont, a diverse neighborhood garden-wise, where blousy floribunda roses drop their petals up the street from starchy birds of paradise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

We picked out a gravesite for Jon last month. And one for me. Jon’s grave was next to his sister’s. My grave had a dandelion growing on it.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[103,2480,2481,187,34,595,29,2482,82,2419],"class_list":["post-33872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-widowed","tag-aging","tag-cypress-lawn","tag-dandelion","tag-death","tag-dont-miss","tag-gravesite","tag-jon","tag-my-grave","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49507,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33872\/revisions\/49507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}