There are cemeteries all over Queens. In one of those cemeteries in Queens, there is a plot. It was reserved years ago. At the time, it contained eight spaces: one for my great-grandfather, one for my great-grandmother, one each for my grandfather and his two sisters, and one for each of their spouses.

I went to my great-uncle’s funeral today. Now there is only one space left — for my grandmother, my mother’s mother, when she dies.

One of the most painful sounds to human ears is the sound of dirt and gravel landing on top of a funeral casket right after it’s been lowered into the ground and the shoveling has begun. Until today, I’d forgotten how arresting that sound is — raw, coarse, real, and yes, painful, and therefore so appropriate. It makes me think of my mom, because her grandfather died within a few months of President Kennedy’s assassination, causing the two events to coaslesce in her 14-year-old mind. She once told me how awful that sound made her feel.

My great-uncle was 96. He was one of the oldest living graduates of NYU. Up until his death, he still lived in the house where he and his wife raised their two daughters. He didn’t stop driving a car until two years ago. I didn’t see him very often and therefore didn’t know him very well. But whenever I did see him, he was a such a friendly guy, and he always knew who I was.

Before the funeral, we drove through Jamaica, the Queens neighborhood where my mom grew up. Afterwards, we drove through Jackson Heights, right past the block where my dad was raised. Queens always makes me think of Archie Bunker and the 1970s, since that’s where and when “All in the Family” took place. I think of largely Jewish neighborhoods, right on the verge of emptying out for mass migration to Florida. The golden age was already over by then — it had ended sometime in the ’60s, probably — but I still have warm feelings for Queens in the ’70s. I don’t know that time or place very well; I wasn’t born until the end of 1973. We lived in Queens for the first three years of my life, though, before moving out to suburban New Jersey, so it’s all in my bones, somehow. I feel nostalgic for those times, when we lived so close to all four of my grandparents and I was mesmerized by “Sesame Street.” When I was a kid, we’d go to Queens all the time and visit one pair of grandparents or the other. Those trips were my connection to the past. Now, though, both of my grandfathers are dead and my grandmothers live in care facilities in New Jersey. There’s no nostalgia in nursing homes.

There’s only one spot left in that cemetery plot. The past is slowly dying.

Then again, it always was.