Seeking BFFs for the End of the World
I spent my teens and twenties looking for a boyfriend; now I just crave female companionship
The so-called Golden Girls of Prospect Cemetery are four women, immigrants who came to Canada from villages along the Carpathian Mountains. They supported each other through the hardships of their adopted home, including children, dead husbands, xenophobia, and the Great Depression. When it came time to plan for the end of their lives, they told their families they had it figured out: They bought a cemetery plot with room for the four of them, side-by-side. Annie, Pauline, Anna, and Nellie are all laid to rest under a single pink granite tombstone marked FRIENDS.
This story was the first time I’d heard of friends sharing a burial plot, but it immediately made sense to me. It made sense that the most meaningful relationships of these women’s lives would be with the people who shared their experiences as women, immigrants, wives, and mothers. Why be buried next to a man who died decades before you? Might as well spend eternity, whatever it is, with your friends.
I worry that I may have missed my chance to make these kinds of friends, the kind who would continuously and undeniably announce to the world that we are best friends forever. And if that’s the case, I blame it on the…
