Today I sat on a grave so old that no trace of their name can be seen. I play here often with my children and think about how much I’d love it if when I’m dead and buried it is a place that people want to sit and love and be. Today however, sat out on my own on my lunchbreak, I worried that people might perceive me choosing to sit there as a mark of disrespect. I thought of the body that laid beneath, of the person that once was and what their spirit might be feeling to have me present. I also thought about the nature that surrounded us, how if I chose to sit on the grass perhaps I might squish an ant or spider, and wondered why we have more attachment to some beliefs and not others in our society. I thought about the conversations me and the dead might have - had they chosen their bench like tomb on purpose or was that a choice that had been made on their behalf? How did they feel about nature, about kids, about love? How did they feel about the societal norms around death and dying? I’d shown them respect and consideration with my mind and my soul while considering both of our relationships with living creatures that surrounded us both above and below the ground. I concluded I’d done more than most people do to consider the dead and the living, so I continued to sit on the tomb because it felt connecting and I felt confident in my choices.
As I sat there I also considered what I’d do if someone came past and reacted to me sitting there. I thought about the nuanced conversation we might have about what respect for the dead looks like. I went on thinking about other forms of respect and appreciation, about all the things that sit between the dead and living. About what we choose to eat and consume as a society, and how little thought so many of us put into that. I opened up my book about disability justice and the phrase to ‘exist is to resist’ ran through me as I thought about every single moment my simple existence as a queer autistic person, let alone an explicit choice to go against the grain, offends someone. I thought about how I’d almost not come out in the sunshine for an hour because growing up in a working class household within an ableist society I still felt like I had to be productive to be worthy - even though I speak of anticapitalist values all the time and remind everyone that rest is resistance, that the daily grind is a construct, that we could all live abundant lives if wealth and land was better distributed.
The grave I sat on. Later that day a young girl was climbing on it, making daisy chains and playing with the spiders she found underneath it. Let’s hope she’s not shamed for exploring so beautifully and joyfully.
Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by an angry man storming past and shouting repeatedly: ‘‘You entitled cunt, how dare you disrespect the dead. Get off that grave. Show some respect to the dead”. I went to jump in to say something, but I knew he wasn’t going to engage in the same nuanced debate me and the dead body beneath me had been having together. I sputtered out “actually I have a lot of respect for the dead..” And was about to point out that I’d even trained as a death doula to be able to support people in the process of dying, and studied many different rituals and rites. But he ignored me and continued with his aggressive barrage “You entitled leftie woke” (Lucky I didn't say anything about my death doula training)...”You want to make everything LGBT.” (Sudden panic that this was a targeted hate crime, that he knew me from somewhere else. Or maybe he really was worried I was making the grave gay by sitting on it) “You’ve never had to work for what you’ve got.” (So confused. Literally everything I’ve got is a result of working - even my kids were a result of a relationship that started at work.. Not sure how that comment would have gone down though!) “You fucking cunt. You entitled leftie cunt” etc etc for a good few minutes.
About 10 people stood by and watched as I silently took the abuse and left, because I continue to have compassion for a man so broken by the world that he needs to make all of these assumptions about who I am and what I represent in order to make himself feel like he has some sort of purpose. The bystanders made the whole experience even more traumatic - it legitimised his policing of me and humiliated me further. No-one that witnessed it followed up with me, and they could’ve done because most people in the town know where I live (which makes these sorts of incidents even more scary). But luckily I have a beautiful supportive queer community who were ready to process the experience with me.
His mention of identity also reminded me of the conversation I’d been having that morning with a researcher that was interested in my experiences of raising kids in a queer polyamorous and gender-affirming household. I told the researcher that we didn’t face too much discrimination (although as I described the way some of my kids' friends won’t come for playdates I realised perhaps I was just accustomed to it). But I explained that was partly because we worked so hard to make sure that there could never be any doubt that our kids are loved and safe and happy. I explained to him how tiring it was to feel like you can never fuck up - the anxiety it brings when you are constantly assessing how safe it is to be yourself in case someone uses that as a way to harm you and your family.
Today I don’t think I even fucked up, but that’s not how others that want an excuse to harm and harass queer and trans people will see it. Ultimately, I had shown exponentially more care, consideration and kindness to both an unnamed body buried 6 feet under ground, and to an aggressive stranger hauling shit at me than that stranger had shown a living being standing right in front of him. But none of this is about love, care or respect for the dead or the living, for people like this man, it’s about dominating and oppressing people to feel more powerful.
If you’d like to explore your own relationship with the dead and dying I’ll be hosting a few online and in-person death cafes this summer. Find out more.