Burying A Romance

On the airport shuttle from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare yesterday, I met a young woman who was traveling home to North Carolina. I didn't get a chance to get her name and write it down (it was an airport hotel after all, and we were too busy talking about books during the 8 minute ride) but she told me a very lovely story.

She traveled to Romantic Times to meet friends she knew only online, and she came only for the Saturday Book Fair. Her home is in North Carolina, so she flew to Atlanta, then to Chicago, just for one day in the Hyatt Regency. She wanted to meet her favorite authors, and her parents thought she was insane to travel so far to go buy books. (I told her she was perfectly sane and also awesome.)

Then she told me her grandmother had gotten her hooked on romance novels, though her grandma liked historicals and my new friend preferred paranormal and urban fantasy. They both loved Nora Roberts, though, and JD Robb. When her grandmother died last year, this woman made sure to put several romances in the casket when she said goodbye.

Last summer she'd traveled to meet several authors at a book signing (I am guessing it may have been RWA) and by the time she got to Victoria Alexander, a favorite author of her grandmother's, Alexander was out of books. So Alexander signed a card and my airport shuttle friend (it is driving me bonkers that I didn't get her name and I am kicking myself) brought it home to her grandmother. That card went into the casket, too.

I've heard stories before of romance fans being buried with their favorite books. Contrary Merry tweeted me that when her grandmother died, “we put the romance Gramma was reading when she passed in her casket. Loretta Chase. She discovered romance late, but she loved it!”

I love stories about how far readers travel to meet their favorite authors, and learning how vacations of a weekend or a week or more are built around the chance to meet and thank someone who has written books which have changed those readers' lives. But the idea of loving the genre so much you want to bury someone with their favorites really touched me.

The Pull My Finger Viking Cover Romances probably find their way into coffins every now and again. I once read an interview with Sandra Hill regarding her epic cover for The Bewitching Viking, which we've called the Pull My Finger Viking. A reader had once told Hill that book was displayed in the casket after that reader's close friend died, so that when family and relatives knelt down to pray, they looked up, saw the book, and laughed. 

I believe heaven is personal – by which I mean, if there is a heaven, my version is probably different from yours. I think we each have an ideal of paradise and perfection that is unique, and our visions of what that paradise is may not have much in common at all. But I am sure that mine includes romance novels, and that's probably true for some of you as well.

I think it is an amazing tribute to the depth and resonance of the novels we love that we bury our loved ones with copies of favorite books, surrounding them with the stories they loved.  It's a personal and thoughtful way to offer one final gesture of care. It also made me think differently about book signings: the people who come to book signings who seek out an author probably also bring with them the parents and grandparents and siblings and children who might share that love – either in person or in their intentions. For so many readers, it is a thrill to meet an author.

And it can be tough being a romance reader. Sunita from Dear Author, who I met during RT, said during our podcast recording that she thinks romance readers suffer a million little pin pricks every time someone dismisses our love of romance. But for every reader whose parents think she is insane for making a journey to buy books and meet authors, there is a grandmother who understands perfectly. Burying someone with a novel they loved may seem a strange tribute, but I think it's a place of great honor for a book and an author, and an indication of how much that book meant to the person who read it, and the person who placed it in the casket.

Have you ever buried someone with a romance novel, or a book they loved? Would you want to take a romance with you when you die? What books would hold that honor in your life, or in the life of someone you love?

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  1. Ev says:

    When my dad was dying, we planned everything. He wore his favorite Hawaiian print shirt, plaid shorts and his red socks. He had his Woodstock 94 tie-dyed baseball cap on that I got him from there. And he had a six-pack of Bud (Bottles only, thank you), and his Tickle Me Elmo that we gave him for his 70th b’day. He was a child of the depression and never had toys, so we bought them for him. He wasn’t a reader, he had dyslexia, but he was a farmer. Everyone got a big kick out of it, because that is how they remember dad. Not the suit and tie type at all. The day of the funeral, it was pouring, and everyone was standing under the tent, moaning the fact that the weather sucked. It was spring (7 years next week). I looked up and said “It’s spring, dad wouldn’t be complaining! He’d be happy about it.” Next thing I know, all my cousins and are all over the cemetery, in the rain, visiting our grandparents and the other aunts and uncles all buried there. In the mud. and no one was complaining. We all trooped back to the church for refreshments. And towels. And lots of great stories. The rain washed the tears away. 

    Oh, and every now and then if the casket got jiggled just right? Elmo started laughing and you could hear it if it was very quiet.

  2. ashley says:

    At my cousin Stephanie’s birthday party, my uncle Sam wore a jean shirt with a pair of jeans.  His godson laughed at him and told him he needed to get more dressed up next time.  About a month later, he died after severe trauma due to a car crash.  At his funeral, as they lowered the casket, his godson dropped a bowtie into the plot.

  3. BethC says:

    I’m wishing I had thought to put some romance novels in with my mother-in-law.  She claimed to be the reason that the little town they lived in needed a new library.  For a good chunk of years after I met her, I would pass along every romance novel I bought after I read them.  She would read them and then give them to their little library.

    One of the things I remember most fondly about her reading habits relates to her having had cornea transplants.  She hadn’t been able to see to read for a couple years, so she’d just collected every book I’d left at the house in big sacks, waiting for the day she could read again.  In 1997, she got to do that.  And she devoured all of them.

  4. Diane O. says:

    First thing anyone says whent hey come to my house is that I have so many books—mostly romance.  I think one of the first I read, “Mrs Mike” would go in there with me, along with Celeste de Blasis’ book, “The Proud Breed” which is my all time favorite.

    My autograph story.  In the 1980’s I was living paycheck to paycheck, but I still spent way too much on romance novels.  RWA had their annual conference in Seattle and were having a huge author signing at WaldenBooks, I was pretty excited.  The location was a bit far, but do-able.  A couple days before the carport of my condo collapsed on my car, the insurance was fighting me, I couldn’t stay in my building while they were checking it out and I had to borrow my grandparents old, gross car.  I made an effort to get to the signing, it took longer in that car because it didn’t go over 50 mph without wheezing.  I took about 5 books, by different authors (there were 20+ authors there).  When I got to the signing I got line, then store employees came down the line to tell us we could only bring one of our books for signing, any others would have to be purchased from Walden.  I was angry then, but did stay and get ONE of my books signed.  It was like the last straw to a shitty week. I wrote a letter to Walden’s president, told him the whole story and mailed it off.  Within two days I got a call from the store manager apologizing all over the place.  She wanted to know who I especially wanted to see, it was such a surprise I couldn’t think.  But I could remember Dorothy Garlock, and named a few others.  The other authors sent me signed bookplates, which was kind.  Dorothy Garlock sent me actual signed books, probably at her own expense.  What a sweetheart—I still buy her books even though they’re not really my style any more.  I think I’ll add her “Annie Lash” to my casket list.  It’s getting pretty long now!

  5. Kathy Ivan says:

    If you have a twitter account, you can go to http://www.kindlegraph.com where there are thousands of authors who can “virtually” sign a copy of their book cover and have it sent to your kindle (can also be sent as a PDF to your computer).

    Hope this helps.  (Kathy Ivan—whose on Kindlegraph—that’s why I know about it.)  LOL

  6. Julie says:

    I just told my niece that it’s her job to ensure that A Song of Ice and Fire, my Kindle, and my iPad make the journey to the other side with me.  She promptly declared her intention of keeping the iPad.  I informed her I would then haunt her forever.  She always has been a little greedy 🙂

  7. MissB2U says:

    OMG – Green Darkness!  I LOVED that book in high school.  I read it in like two days.  I’d come home, get a bag of sunflower seeds, shut my door and read until my neck stopped working.  Thanks for reminding me of another great read.

  8. Laurie Evans says:

    Yes, I thought the same thing!

  9. Mary Anne Landers says:

    Thank you for your touching post, Sarah.  Plenty of food for thought here!

    In my religion, Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, we customarily cremate our dead rather than bury them.  So I don’t plan to take anything with me.

    But you know who I’d like to be in my next lifetime?  The next Nora Roberts!

    Keep up the good work!

  10. Helena Sapphire says:

    Redux,
    Longmire already did a caption for the ‘Bewitched Viking cover’

    It’s “Pull My finger”

    see here http://www.worldoflongmire.com…

  11. Jennifer Estep says:

    What a great story and a lovely post. I’d never thought or had heard of someone being buried with their favorite books, but I think it’s very touching.

  12. Jaxs says:

    I am going to take them all with me in my kindle, iPad, Sony, my Kobos & whatever Nook replaces whatever one that just died. After having spent the last half of my life disabled in a wheelchair and in pain, books are the best distraction ever from that life! But they don’t need to worry about sending my wheels with me but my ereaders are important and I’m certain that I’ll have some time in the after life to enjoy the hundreds that I have not yet read. I might make my Estate responsible for keeping them charged up every three months or so but I’m fairly certain that the positive energy in the afterlife will keep them running smoothly. The question will be ” can I download the sequels to some of these novels?” Well if anyone can answer, please post! 

  13. Liana LeFey says:

    Bury me with my first: The Kadin, by Bertrice Small! -Liana LeFey, Author at Montlake Romance

  14. Stevie says:

    You know you are so sweet, and the rest of the commenters are also wonderful, thus exposing me as a pretty substandard human being, since all I’ve done after reading this is to go hunting after a copy of ‘The Enchanted Viking’.

    I don’t know if anyone’s seen ‘Merlin’-it’s a British tv series- which whilst nominally for children and young adults has a remarkably high percentage of very beautiful guys not wearing shirts.

    Should you come cross it please ensure that your grandmother get’s to see it too?

  15. Steviegamble1 says:

    You know, I rather like the thought of you taking your wheels with you to the great library in the sky. After all, a few modifications and you have a chariot to ride whilst wreaking vengeance on your foes…

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