If I could just interrupt this lightheartedness for a moment to give cudos to the folks who help with this very difficult task. I'm thinking now specifically of the recent tragic events in Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere around the world, and the grief-stricken families.

When I was about 18 or 19 years old, my future father-in-law and I were called upon to hand-dig a grave in a very small country cemetery on his farm in the midwest. It was about January 15th and smack dab in the middle of one of the worst and longest cold snaps on record--consistent 30 below zero F temperatures dropping down to -75 degrees with the windchill. We had to start with axes to chop chunks of frozen earth down through the 36 inch frost layer before we could even begin to use shovels. It was backbreaking labor and took two solid days. There was barely room for us to dig down in the hole with our many layers of clothes on. The wind was howling and it was snowing throughout the process. The whole thing reminded me of a scene from Dr. Zhivago. We barely finished in time for the service.

After the service, I was left alone to fill the hole and generally clean up. Thankfully, I was able to partially refill the hole using the end-loader shovel on my future father-in-law's Massey-Harris tractor. However the last bit had to be done by hand, and I could only partially do that because much of the dirt had refrozen into a solid block of ice.

The graveside service was for a fairly prominent farmer in the area, and I distinctly remember a very large stack of flowers that was left next to the grave as I was finishing up. They were mostly bunches of roses, and when I tried to pick them up to use them to cover the partially filled grave, the frozen blossoms shattered like glass. It was a very poignant reminder of the fragility of life, and the struggles we sometimes face while trying to survive.

We were paid $25 total for our 2 days of work and glad to get it.