The clerk asked: Did we want Plot 152 or 163? Next to a cluster of pines or a spot with a view?

I felt incapable of making any decision, let alone a decision about a cemetery plot for my daughter. When the clerk told us about the sale, she said we could, if we both chose to be cremated someday (in order to share a plot), be buried next to our daughter.

David and I looked at each other and agreed. Sure. Whatever. Why not add the purchase of a discounted cemetery plot to the list of things I never imagined myself doing?

On our drive home, I said to David, “Do you realize we are the only people we know who have purchased cemetery plots?”

“Yes, but we’re also the only people we know whose baby just died.”

He was right, of course. Yet every cell in my body was in denial. My breasts were leaking milk, and there was no way to stop it. My heart and my brain could not accept what my body was denying as well.

The day before we buried June, my mother came over. It was my birthday and she was worried. She sat on the edge of my bed, wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “Tomorrow is going to be very hard, but you can’t forget — death ends a life, not a relationship. You are still her mother. She is still your daughter.”

That night, when putting my son to bed, he asked again about June. I had no words left. Instead, I crawled in next to him, inhaled the lavender scent of his hair and let him do the talking. He talked about getting a toy cement truck for Christmas, seeing his cousins, and the giant glass of eggnog his grandmother had let him drink at her house.