Have A 10-year Seat, Mrs. Coleman

It's six blocks of death. And that's just north to south. On Google Maps, the Grim Reaper's footprint is outrageous.

Cruising in one of four lanes along Wadsworth Boulevard, any semi-attentive driver has to at least glance at Crown Hill Cemetery. The tombstone grid is endless, a visual vacuum. And maybe you could shrug off the cold, ominous rock if there wasn't always a dark-colored SUV freshly parked along the circulation artery. Its doors open —an emotional getaway —a family huddles nearby to pay respects to etched dates, the individual below. Always small children in tow, too; heightens the impact of the scene.

At 40 miles per hour, you're traveling roughly 58 feet per second. And to put Crown Hill in the rear-view mirror, that half mile will claim about 45 seconds. You're bound to contemplate dying in those clock ticks.

The walls of three mausoleum buildings, that's what I tend to scan in passing. They're all connected, thin, sitting perpendicular to 30th Avenue. The east faces almost peer over Wadsworth Boulevard, close enough that the white writings on the red hearts of giant stuffed bears leaning on the granite panels are discernible from the passenger window. Plaques mark those who are within the walls; beside them real and fake flowers act as asterisks. The glop of spent candles cascades over their stands.

But oh, the molded-plastic chairs with their cold metal legs. They're always empty and innocent, but I see literal and symbolic occupants.

Inevitably, exhausted bodies slumped in the seats, filling the tissues they snagged from the end table inside the building doors. Remnants of dusty footprints suggest visitors step-stooled and reached to drop carnations into vases. Other I-miss-you furry animals in their too-cheery poses before wind tossed them on the concrete.

Then I finally passed under the ominous gates, parked and strolled up to the names.

There sat Rachel Coleman, the chair acting as her afterlife waiting room. She was born in 1918 and died...well, not yet. But there she is, next to her husband, Gus, who passed in 2000. "Together forever" divides the two. How does Rachel, who's somewhere in Denver (or far beyond), feel about having her final resting place not only predetermined but collecting dust in anticipation? It's like a storage space you've rented, but the contents are eventual, and the contents are you.

But what perspective prevails: the morbidity of a rectangular prism eager to slap your name out front, or the endearment of life partners situated for an eternal spoon?

The expanse of Crown Hill tends to wrench my gut. Its reach grows like weeds, always reminding me of our transience, the daily obituaries. Hell, a couple hundred milliseconds is the difference between braking in time and crunching the vehicle stopped in front of you. I could be toast just by looking at that cemetery instead of the road.

Yet I've got to appreciate Gus and Rachel Coleman —and surely numerous other pairs —for highlighting that dreary landscape with a bit of love, of life.