How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
August said, 'We sit with her so we can tell her good-bye. It's called a vigil. Sometimes people have a hard time letting death sink in, they can't say good-bye. A vigil helps us do that.'
If the dead person is right there in your living room, it would certainly make things sink in better. It was strange to think about a dead person in the house, but if it helped us say good-bye better, then okay, I could see the point of it (10. 90).
Here, Lily is musing about the family's decision to keep May's body in the house. Like June with her music, August wishes to help ease the time of "passage" that comes with death, both for the dead and for their mourners.
Quote #8
June played with her eyes closed, as if May's spirit getting into heaven depended solely on her. You have never heard such music, how it made us believe death was nothing but a doorway (10.97).
June is now applying her talents with her own family, playing with such passion, Lily remarks, that it feels like she's using the music to ensure May's safe passage into the afterlife. Also, the music may help the mourners as well by making death seem like "nothing but a doorway"—that is, not such a huge transition after all.
Quote #9
'Covering the hives was supposed to keep the bees from leaving. You see, the last thing they wanted was their bees swarming off when a death took place. Having bees around was supposed to ensure that the dead person would live again.'
My eyes grew wide, "Really?'
'Tell her about Aristaeus,' Zach said.
'Oh, yes, Aristaeus. Every beekeeper should know that story . . . Aristaeus was the first keeper of bees. One day all his bees died, punishment by the gods for something bad that Aristaeus had done. The gods told him to sacrifice a bull to show he was sorry, and then return to the carcass in nine days and look inside it. Well, Aristaeus did just what they said, and when he came back, he saw a swarm of bees fly out of the dead bull. His own bees, reborn. He took them home to his hives, and after that people believed that bees had power over death. The kings in Greece made their tombs in the shape of beehives for that very reason' (10.134-137).
In this quote, the novel's heavy use of bees/beehive symbolism and its preoccupation with death collide. Instead of bees and beehives being omens of death, as Rosaleen envisioned, August presents them as symbols of resurrection and rebirth—so long as you're not allergic to bee stings. Seems accurate enough, since life with a beekeeper seems to have brought Lily to life, no?