What a lovely piece: poignant, thoughtful, intelligent all at once. Roman epitaphs are often written in a way that suggests that the dead are there in the tomb and aware of themselves in death (as opposed to the mythology of the underworld we read in Vergil, for example). I always though that was grim, but your piece prompted me to think anew about not having any awareness--and it is awful either way.

Thanks too for the reference to Bede. I've taught parts of his work but didn't know that quotation.