When I was young, my parents used to take us out to the cemetary a couple of times a year to visit the graves of my dad’s parents. (Mom’s parents were buried elsewhere). We used to plant flowers, pull weeds, and trim around the graves.
My parents died just over 9 years ago. They are buried in a cemetary about 10 miles from my home. I’ve been there once, about 6 years ago, just curious to see where the grave was.
They were cremated, and then buried in the same plot. I don’t believe in an afterlife, and the particular plot of ground where their ashes were buried doesn’t really mean anything to me. I don’t feel the need to go there to remember them.
I was curious how often the rest of you visited the gravesites of family/friends, and why.
My father is buried about 40 miles away. Not a bad drive, and in a beautiful old cemetary under a spreading tree. I should know - I picked out his grave. But I rarely go. Not because it’s icky or morbid, but because there’s no sense of Dad there. I’m fairly devoutly Catholic, so I *do * have a belief in an afterlife, so his mortal remains are not that important to me.
My dad went to his family’s grave sites twice a year to lay wreaths, and I always went with him.
But once we both moved out of state nobody did that. And it didn’t matter.
So now I don’t go to his grave unless my mother needs a ride.
It’s not my dad in the grave. It’s his bones. Might as well be his suit without the bones, as far as I can see. My dad is not there and he is not anywhere else. He’s gone. No more. And headstones and visits don’t change that.
When I die, if they follow my wishes (which means my children make the call and not my pushy sister) then my remains will disappear. In the ocean or scattered over a river. And no empty urns or markers anywhere.
Everyone I know is cremated, but I think Hindus still bury babies or something? My older sister is buried. My parents never visit her grave when we’re in India, though. They say having me and my sister relieved most of the pain but they don’t want to revisit or think about that time in their life.
My mom goes fairly often, and I end up going with her about once a year – not on a special date or anything, it just works out that way. It probably helps that a bunch of the family are all buried in the same cemetery. You know, if someone dies and you are at the funeral, you might as well stop and visit other graves because you’re in the neighborhood.
I enjoy it in the sense of going to a nice park, and I like being with other people (usually my mom and possibly other family members) because it helps put us in the mind of family stories about certain individuals. Sure, we can remember funny stories about people any time, and we do, but standing on that person’s grave provides a little additional focus.
Seems to me when I was a kid we were always told we were supposed to try to avoid walking across the graves - out of respect, I think. Anyone else hear that, or do you just walk/stand wherever?
I go to cemetaries occasionally either around my area or when travelling, more out of historical/sociological interest. But not because I know anyone planted there.
I visit my folks grave every year on Memorial Day to dress it up for the weekend. Plant a few flowers and put a US flag on it if the VFW missed it.
In the same cemetery as my Dad is my Grandfather, my Great Grandfather and my Great Great Grandfather, along with spouses and siblings and assorted mysteries.
My wife and I plan to be cremated and scattered to the four winds.
Once in a blue moon. (I’ll admit to visiting cemetaries slightly more often for historical/botanical/sociological interest).
My family is scattered geographically. My grandmother visits (or used to visit) various family members’ gravesites on a regular basis. My great-aunt on the other side visits the closest thing I have to a family plot. I’d be inclined to want to be cremated, just to avoid having to figure out where an appropriate cemetary to bury me was. (OK, OK, so if I were dead, I would not be the person having to solve the problem).
I used to go all the time when I was 16-19, I didn’t know anyone buried there I just kinda hung out. I haven’t been to my Grandparents graves since we buried Grandma 15 years ago. I visited one in early November in Savannah while on business, It was just across the street from where I was staying.
Speaking of walking over graves, where is the body in relation to the marker? If you’re facing the front of the marker and reading the text, are you standing on the grave?
What if the marker is flush with the ground? Is the marker at the head or foot of the grave?
I should be embarrassed to ask, but nobody can see me. So there.
To answer the OP, my husband and I visit his family gravesite on Memorial Day to place flowers. He talks to them while I wander around looking at stones.
The only time I ever visited a relative’s grave was when I was visiting Phoenix (where my dad was born and raised). I thought I should visit the graves of my grandparents (who died long before I was born), as well as the grave of my uncle who was only 6 when he died (my dad’s favorite-but-sad story was about my Uncle Glenn’s deathbed).
I found them and it was nice in a family-connection way. I also love visiting cemetaries in general and always try to visit one if I’m in a big city, especially in the eastern U.S., so just walking through this cemetary to get to those particular graves was worth the visit.
Nobody else I know that’s close to me is buried, but I can’t imagine visiting with any regularity if there was (unless it was in a nice location where I could go for a quiet walk or something).
My favorite aunt died at age 98. I loved her and respected her. She was cremated and her ashes interred in the family plot, which is rather close to the cemetary entrance.
Her birthday was Halloween. Every year on that night, my daughter and I carve a jack-o-lantern and leave it on my aunt’s grave, lit with a candle, facing the cemetary entrance.
It’s cool and creepy and scares the hell out of the neighborhood kids as they pass the cemetary trick-or-treating. We get a good laugh, and if she were still alive she would have gotten a kick out of it.
We don’t visit graves to “spend time” with the dead or to imagine they are gazing at us from Elysium. We do it as sort of a way to bring memories of them to the fore, so they can live on in our hearts, where they belong.
Based upon visits so far, zero per lifetime. I don’t place any significance on the place where my mother’s urn is buried. I’m not sure there’s a way to write this out that doesn’t make me sound like a callous, uncaring person, but I don’t know where any of my relatives are buried. I couldn’t tell you the names of the cemeteries or the locations of the plots. I had never been there in all the years I lived in some proximity. The chances of my going 1200 miles away to look them up is just about zero. I’ll just remember these people in my own way.
As little as possible. I don’t know why, but I can visit “old” or “historical” cemetaries that aren’t being actively usedf now, but ones where there’s still buryin’ going on just wig me right out. As a kid I couldn’t even go to the local water slide because it was across from the local graveyard.
I know where everyone is buried, I just don’t care to visit if there’s any way out of it.
I never had a cemetary visiting family. When I was in high school and was able to drive, I went to the Jewish cemetary where my great-grandmother and my grandfather were buried and had to find them myself (It was too hard for my mom to go). I went randomly, when I thought about it, but not a whole lot. When I did go, I would pull up any random weeds on their plots and leave a small flower on the headstones. I mostly just wished that I was able to know them, because in life they were terrific people from what I hear from the family.
Other family members have been cremated and scattered, so no actual grave and others I have only been at the cemetary for the actual burial (rural Nebraska).
A good friend of mine who died the day before one of my aunts. My aunts funeral was in Salina, Kansas and my friends funeral was in Omaha, Nebraska. I had to travel from Nevada. The funeral services for both were on the same day and about the same time. Not feasable to go to both. I did however travel to Omaha after my aunts funeral to see some of our common friends. I didn’t go to the cemetary where my friend was buried until over a year later. That was the most bizarre. I was standing at the grave of a woman I had grown up with, known for 23 years, graduated from high shool with, on the weekend of our 10 year reunion. I cried my eyes out, it hit me really hard, maybe it’s that mortality thing. But I will most likely never go back.
I have no family buried in Nevada and visiting random graves might be a little wierd.
My parents are buried next to each other, with one marker for both. I go once or twice a year, usually on Mother’s/Father’s Day or one of their birthdays. I don’t believe in any afterlife, and I really don’t know why I go. It may just be a sort of “centering” experience for me.