To stand opposite your own grave is a strange and deeply unnerving experience. I did it first at eleven years old, with my parents standing either side of me, Mother holding tightly onto my hand as Father intoned with brutal nonchalance the words, “This is where we buried you.”

To see the name, your name, carved into granite and marble, gouged into the stone with chisel-edged finality, is enough to chill the blood to the same temperature as the slab. It is a leaden declaration for all the world to read that once you did exist, but now, now you do not.

Still, it is not a unique experience. I read once that both...