Memorializing Mortality

With this course and (thankfully!) this blog coming to an end, it is time to reflect on what has been learned/realized and to voice my thoughts on a subject one last time.  First of all, if there is one thing this course  has made me realized it is my own mortality.  Coming into the Archaeology of Death, I was aware we would be discussing burials, and grave goods of those looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong gone.  However, as the course went on, my Grampa was in and out of the hospital and my dog aged and has only a few years left.  And, of course, with my many illnesses of my own, I realized my own imminent demise. 

I've always been a worrisome person.  I always think of the worse case scenario, and I always freak out.  I don't know why this course resonated with me so much or made me so depressed.  I think it might have something to do with the surrounding possibility of death to more than one of my loved ones.  Also, I think that it might have something to do with university opening my mind and me getting older and realizing that my dog isn't going to end up at some farm, running free.  I believe it's because I'm old enough know to have formed bonds with people and to remember them, and the concept of losing them would break my heart.  That and I'm too young to leave this world, I have so much more living to do.

Now, a quick ending to this blog.  Is how we remember the dead enough?  In tragedies like the Holocaust, is a memorial statue or wall really enough?  When a family member dies, is a gravestone enough?

My stance on this is still up in the air.  I lost a very dear family friend a few years ago and I'm still not over it (probably because I saw him only a few days before it happened for the first time in years).  I couldn't bring myself to go to the funeral and I haven't forgiven myself for that.  He died in an avalanche, doing what he loved most, and all that is left to remember him is a tombstone.  I feel that most people who have contributed something to society or loved something so much should have a scholarship or a foundation of some sort set up in their name.  I do know this: when I die, I want a scholarship set up in my name for women who want to go to school away from home who have good grades (like me), who are passionate about sports (like me), and who have no financial support from any family (like me).