August 1 – The Pass Through

Yesterday was Caitlin’s birthday, and in a very small, very private family ceremony, we moved her earthly self to a final place of rest — The Pass Through Dolmen, which her dad conceived, designed, and built for her with all of his heart and soul.

We are so full of relief that she is now permanently in a safe, good place, and the day was so emotional and beautiful, that I feel rather numb and I’m not sure I can convey how special it was but I must try!

The journey to build the dolmen began twenty years ago at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris when Caitlin, so taken with the beauty and dramatic gravitas of the cimetière’s intertwining pathways and ornate mausoleums and sculptures and tombs housing the likes of Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust, and Kafka, Chopin, and Jim Morrison, declared that she never wanted to be buried or cremated but would love something magnificent and lasting like Père Lachaise.

It was a slim directive, but fortunately for Caitlin, Nick is a stone artist and after her passing, we discovered that we had access to a beautiful location—Edgell Grove Cemetery in Framingham. Designed by Henry Dearborn, the same architect who helped establish Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Edgell Grove offered a mausoleum where Caitlin could temporarily stay while the cemetery trustees, so helpful, kind, and trusting, worked with us to secure land and obtain conservation permissions while Nick designed something to last one thousand years without maintenance.

He calls his creation The Pass Through Dolmen. Its solid yet open design symbolizes how we pass through this life and into the next. In fact, he swears that if he closes his eyes and reaches his hand between the stones, he can feel Caitlin’s fingers wiggling on the other side. An uneven stone bridge, representing life’s ups and downs, leads up to the mound over which The Pass Through Dolmen presides.

The bridge can be a precarious path to walk—one must be mindful—and could have been dangerous for pallbearers. Instead, the pallbearers delivered Caitlin to a crane as our small family group assembled by the dolmen’s pillars. When the crane began its work, I played the music I think Caitlin wanted for the occasion, Under Pressure, about which she wrote, “Some lyrics stand out as not as the most famous lines, or even as singular, cohesive ideas, but as the part of the song that just makes your heart soar, or break. These lyrics don’t behave like normal words…they fail to incite feeling without the song itself—that is the magic of music.”

The magic of music urged us to give love, give love, give love as Nick’s longtime stone artisans Paul and Steve, in sync with The Baxter Crane Company’s skilled operators, in absolute silence and with the greatest precision and elegance, gracefully delivered Caitlin up to the dolmen.

I wish my eyes could have recorded—visually, aurally, and emotionally—how this moment felt: the uncanny slipping-sideways sense of surreality.

I used Caitlin’s ICU “comforting” playlist and Do You Believe in Magic played next as the men fitted the casket into precise position between the pillars. Then Joni Mitchell background-sang as we gathered around. I had filled a slim, fireproof bag with a few meaningful items and placed it on the casket. Uncle Mike noted how Caitlin brought us together at the holidays. Katie talked about how Caitlin was her anam ċara – Irish for soul friend. She read John O’Donohue’s Friendship Blessing as the first fat drops of rain began to fall.

Then we retreated under umbrellas as the crane retrieved and fitted the protective granite crypt—a hollowed-out piece of solid granite, into place over the casket. Finally, the crane placed the 13 and a half ton capstone over the crypt and pillars. It took Nick two and a half years to locate that capstone, with the help of a man named Brian, on top of a mountain in Maine.

Although there is still another few month’s worth of work to be done to complete The Pass Through Dolmen, we are deeply relieved that this major part of Caitlin’s journey is finally complete. We will let all loved ones know when the site is ready for visits.

Thank you for these years of support, friendship, and love. And hats off to Nick — what an incredible accomplishment.

Friendship Blessing, by John O’Donohue

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.