By Larry Efird

A weird, but funny, thing happened the other night.

My principal  called my house while my wife and I were watching television. He said his call was awkward, and then he quickly informed me that another staff member told him  that she had heard I  had passed away.

I looked at my wife and she could hear the conversation. We both smiled and wondered how that someone else knew that but we didn’t! I did wonder, ever so briefly, if maybe that was true and I was on the “other side” but just didn’t realize it yet.  I also thought that if dying was as peaceful as that, then I didn’t have anything to worry about.

In the midst of the COVID-19 paranoia and stress, I can only assume how many rumors are circulating about bigger things than my “own passing.” There are much more important things to worry about for sure.

It did make me remember, however, that when I turned 40 a “few years ago” a man pulled up in my driveway and asked if I wanted to buy a burial plot. Really. He appeared out of nowhere while I was mowing my lawn.

I didn’t know burial plot salesmen went door-to-door. I would think burial plots “sell themselves,” as they say.

My wife also reminded me the day after I supposedly had died, how Mark Twain responded to a reporter after a rumor had circulated that he was near death, or dead. Twain is said to have quipped, “The rumors of my death may have been greatly exaggerated.” I can relate.

I’ve also heard from a few students online who were checking up on me to make sure I was “allright.”  I tried to assure them that I was; hopefully, others weren’t too disappointed when they found out that was the case.

My wife and I have also had people stop us on the street as we take our daily walk to tell us that they had also “heard the news,” even though I am standing in front of them in the flesh. Although this  experience has  become humorous, it is also humbling.

Naturally, our grown children don’t like for my wife and me to discuss our future funeral plans. They think that’s morbid and depressing, of course. But a few years ago, we informed them that we had selected our burial plots in the historic city cemetery.  They were purchased by my great-grandparents a century ago. They bought six plots, but because 4.5 of them are currently occupied, only a person and a half could be buried there today, or one adult and one infant, if need be.

Doing the math, I knew my wife and I couldn’t be buried side by side, so we figured that cremation would work, because our “cremains” would fit in the space available. I paid the minimal service fee of $25 — ironically, to Parks and Recreation — so we are now all set. Thanks to my great-grandparents, the plots are “free.”

In order to claim those spots, I had to contact all of my father’s siblings, as well as his numerous first  cousins in several states, to make sure none of them wanted to be buried there since they were “ahead of me in line.”

I also had to have their signatures notarized. That was no small feat; the laborious process took one whole year. Then, I had to make sure my two older brothers did not want them either.

Finally, things became “legal,” and the spots were mine.

In a strange way, that gave me a sense of happiness to know I will be buried under an ancient magnolia tree, cradled by its roots which grow wide and deep in my loving hometown.

Although I like knowing where my final resting place will be, I don’t know when my “real passing” will ultimately occur. No one does. The “exaggeration of my death” was a good reminder to enjoy each day as if it were my last.

Writer Henry van Dyke aptly reminds us to  “Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to live, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.”  Not bad words for all of us who are “still here.”

Larry Efird teaches at A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis.