pseudotriton ruber ruber - You paid that much for gravesites and still have to pay maintenance? My parent’s graves were $700 each (4 years ago) and that covers all maintenance.
StG
My fiance (died 1992) and father (died 1994) are both buried in a cemetary relatively near my home. My dad was cremated. His cremains are in a grave at the cemetary so my mother and brothers would have someplave to visit. I never really visited his site too much, except to make sure that the headstone wasn’t sinking.
I got sort of weird about visiting my fiance’s grave a bit too much in the years after her death.
I actually even had a job as a researcher at the park where they are buried because the people there knew me from visiting her grave so often (a few times a week). They knew I was into the whole researching thing, so they offered me a job. My desk overlooked her grave, and actually came to be pretty good therapy. I stayed there for about two years, and I pretty much dealt with my little self-pitying ways by that point.
I don’t really visit much anymore because of a number of reasons. These include the fact that I am now married and it just isn’t very cool in the eyes of my wife to visit the grave of an ex. I would sort of like to go back every now and again, but it really isn’t worth the bad feelings it would cause.
All this being said, the cemetary is just there for the living to have a place to visit. I am not able to attach any spirtual significance to a cemetary; I’m more attracted to cemetaries as art. When I go visit my family in Finland, we make special trips to visit historic cemetaries where relatives are buried. If they weren’t in historic areas, I doubt I’d ever visit there either.
Nope. Never do. Never will. Last time I was at my mother’s grave was the first time, the day she was buried.
I’ve had actual arguments with people who believe this shows a lack of respect and concern and love for my late mother. Nonsense. Whatever is left in that overpriced hole in the ground after 13 years now isn’t my mother.
As far as my own corpse is concerned, whoever gets the task of dealing with the remains should just do whatever is cheapest and easiest. Cremation, I guess, although for all I care they can stand the stiff up in a garbage can and let the Sanitation Department haul it off.
Yes. I’ve been to the gravesite of a grandfather, and his wife who I never met. Well, and others of course. It’s peaceful there, and I think closure is a good thing. I never went to the funeral of a family friend a few years ago because I couldn’t get out of town. Now every time I go past his house, I momentarily consider visiting him in his workshop out back…then I remember that he’s dead.
I also used to put war service markers and flags on graves at a not-taken-care-of graveyard for a Boy Scout/Girl Scout activity every Memorial Day. Really brings home the importance of Memorial Day.
My mom and grandmother are buried next to each other in Austin, and go bye most times when I visit. A couple of years ago I managed to get my dad to go, too - I don’t think he’d visited since she died - oh my, 29 years ago today. Wow. Didn’t realize that 'til just now.
Anyway, he found it a bit depressing. The main reason he’d liked the cemetery was that it was so peaceful, with a nice view out in the country east of Austin. Now of course it’s all suburbia.
My dad’s parents are interred in Fargo, but the closest family there are distant cousins. We almost disinterred them, but Dad decided against it because the mausoleum is so well cared for - which is a bit ironic since we won’t be around to confirm that in future years. I’m certainly not going to Fargo just for that. But he’s said I can disinter them once he’s gone, and I may just do that - sprinkle their ashes somewhere else.
Oh, ouch. :smack:
My mom and grandmother do not go bye when I visit. Or go “bye!” They pretty much just stay where they’ve been for three decades, and they don’t talk much.
And we had no occasion to want to disinter my distant cousins. Although in Fargo the distinction is perhaps a fine one, these cousins are still living.
St.Germain–what part of the country were these graves? I’m impressed that you could get a perpetual care deal for 700 bucks. Around these parts, real estate is very expensive, even if you plan only to lie in a box and decompose.
pseudotriton ruber ruber - I think probably because this cemetary isn’t a for-profit operation. It’s a Catholic cemetary operated by the diocese. I suppose they just sell the plots for enough to continue to pay the employees’ salaries. And at that, they probably subsidize plots for those who have no family and no estate to pay for the fee. That’s just a guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The Diocese bought all the land well over a hundred years ago when the Protestant South didn’t want Catholics buried in their cemetaries, and “popish” rituals to consecrate the ground.
StG
I’ve never been to the graves of my paternal grandparents (who died when I was six) & I doubt that I’ll ever go to the grave of my maternal grandfather, who died this past November.
I loved my paternal grandparents in the way that a six-year-old can. I don’t have much nostalgia for them simply because I was so young when they passed. I associate the end of my maternal grandfather’s life with sadness: I’d like to remember him as he was before the dementia grabbed hold, not visit a grave & recall what it was like in the time before he died.
My father has the same attitude… The people whom you loved aren’t in the ground, they’re in your memories.