Maybe four or five times a year, Eleanor Blair gets up at the crack of dawn, loads her 10-year-old Dogo Argentino mutt into her car and drives 20 minutes to a cemetery to dig a grave. The 69-year-old is one of several volunteers who participate in near-weekly diggings at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery in Gainesville. They arrive early in the morning and spend two to three hours hacking at the ground with picks and shovels until the hole is 42 inches deep — the necessary depth to accommodate a body. "I enjoy the camaraderie of meeting random friends out in the woods early in the morning and digging a hole," Blair said. She pauses for a moment and laughs at the morbidity of her words. "It sounds terrible, I suppose," Blair said. "Certainly, someone who's never experienced it would think, 'Oh my God, that's a terrible hobby to have.' But it's also extremely important to be part of end-of-life experiences." The 78-acre cemetery, which opened nine years ago, isn't a typical one. It prides itself on green burials: Caskets are biodegradable, and cement and tombstones aren't involved. In fact, save for the occasional mound of grass and plants, the cemetery seems like a natural clearing at the foot of trees. Blair dug her first grave less than two years ago when a friend of hers died. She was struck at how proper and respectful the process was. Before long, she started talking with her ailing mother about end-of-life preparations. And in August 2015, into Prairie Creek her mother went.
In Burying Her Mother, Gravedigger Finds Peace
