The day after my father died I went with my mother and my son to the for-profit cemetery where my father had purchased eight plots in the 1950s. Buried there are his parents; his sister, her husband and their child; my brother, who was stillborn; and now my father. Although my family had owned plots there for more than 50 years, this was the first time I had ever had any dealings with them. It was a rude awakening.