We picked our father's final resting place this morning, my sister and I. He will be interred in the 'urn garden' of the Nieuw Eykenduynen cemetery in The Hague sometime next month, the exact date to be decided still as we've agreed to wait until the headstone of polished green granite that we also picked out and ordered this morning, is ready. That way we can inter him and place the stone at the same time. So it will probably be some 6 to 7 weeks from now.

We've bagged him a lovely spot, next to a bamboo grove and with an impressive water feature close by...and, as we were being informed that the spot we'd picked actually held enough room for 2 urns, I quickly decided that I would quite like for my urn to be buried there as well when my time comes. My sister readily concurred, as she prefers to be buried in the family plot, which happens to be in the same cemetery and currently holds the remains of our maternal grandmother, one of her sisters, and one of our aunts. I didn't know my sister preferred burial to cremation, but since that's the choice she's made, it means she was quite happy to let me have that leftover space if -God forbid- I should die within the next 5 years, which is the time we've purchased the plot for. And who knows, we may just extend the contract after that.