There is a recurring metaphor in our culture of death as sleep, and it shows up in cemetery epitaphs. Guy and Carrie Kittell’s epitaphs both refer to sleep. His is “Just like going to sleep” and hers is “If I should sleep till morning, do not wake me up.”
Elizabeth Waggoner’s family inscribed her tombstone to advise us that “She is not dead, but sleepeth.”
The Gerhardts’ have a similar epitaph.
A Grave Concern 