The thread about rocks on gravestones got me thinking about my brother who passed almost 17 years ago. I was 18 when he died and I’ve only been back to his grave maybe 5 times since then. I suppose some people find comfort in it but it’s very painful for me.
How often do you visit your loved ones grave? Do you feel guilty that you don’t go more?
I don’t have a lot of dead loved ones. Pretty much just my grandparents – who are all either buried 1,000 miles away or have been cremated.
Even still … I don’t buy into the whole grave-yard paradigm, or whatever. It all seems very creepy to me. I don’t want a grave marker when I snuff it. If you want to remember me, remember me. And feel free to do it whereever and whenever you’d like. No need to drive out to the cemetary on my birthday in a nice suit. I can take it.
Not very often. My aunt died four years ago and I’ve been back once. One of my best friends, about 4 times since she died three years ago. I’ve not been back to my grandmother’s, but she only died two years ago.
It’s not something I ever look forward to doing, it’s mostly just so that I can make sure the gravesites are being taken care of.
No gravestones wheeeeeee! No seriously, a) we cremate, and b) most of my dead are 7,000 miles away. Even my mom, who died in the States, my dad washed her ashes away in the Ganga a year or so ago.
No gravestones for me to visit either. All my dead relatives (apart from my dad) are in Scotland, and I’m in Canada. My dad’s ashes are scattered in his favourite park.
This sums up my feelings perfectly.
My dead relatives are all buried a couple hundred miles away for where I now live. I’ve told my family that I want to be cremated and scattered.
I visit the pond my mother’s ashes are scattered in every year on her birthday. It’s a lovely day, weather permitting–I stroll around my hometown (the only time I ever visit) and have lunch with my cousins.
Last year I learned: bring bread for the pond ducks! They are the size of Volkswagens, and mean.
My buried relatives are in a cemetery 500 miles away. I visit when I pass thru the town, which so far has been only 3 times in 35 years.
My mother used to visit the cemetery where my father was buried almost every Sunday after church, weather permitting, when I was a kid. Then it was only a few miles away.
Never. It would not benefit me or the dead person to do so.
I visit my Pop’s grave infrequently. Significant anniversaries mainly - the last time I went was the 20th anniversary of his death, in 2008.
My grandfather’s ashes (as I mentioned in the recent cremation thread) are still in my parent’s spare room, but I don’t drop by and visit* him *even when I’m in the house visiting them. My grandmother’s ashes have been scattered and I’ve been out to visit the location several times even though I didn’t back when they were in the spare room.
I sometimes stop at the cemetery in the weeks before Christmas to visit the grave of a guy I hardly knew who was killed in a car accident in 1998. He may not have been a big part of my life, but his death really made an impact on me and I can’t help thinking of him at that time of year.
It’s painful, it’s not a comfort, so there’s no point.
My daughter has two friends who died in the last couple of years. She and a friend visit their graves, take mementos, make sure the sites are tidy. I think they do it so that the friends’ parents know that people are still thinking about them.
My husband’s sisters make him take flowers to their parents’ graves on Memorial Day. (They’re out of state.) It’s kind of a big deal around here. If you see graves with no flowers, you think it must be because all of their people are gone.
My family mostly does the ‘whole body donation’ thing. Benefits the living and much cheaper too. So no graves to visit.
No - I don’t even know where people are buried and I don’t really care. They are dead - whatever remains is just a rapidly decomposing container and I don’t get the need to treat those remains as if they were the person. I actually feel that graveyards are a waste of space and good land, although many have had the positive side effect of preserving ‘parkland’. I don’t see the point of filling fields up with dead bodies.
This. I don’t even know where any of my family is buried.
Never. They’re dead. I can remember them just fine at home, or on the trail, or while I’m kayaking or something. I see no reason to specifically go out of my way to visit their grave(s).
I’ve been a couple of times since moving to Portland, primarily for genealogy purposes. Both my parents’ families are buried here.
I said “rarely” but really the only time I see their graves is when someone else is being buried in the same cemetery.
My sister’s, a couple of times a year; around her birthday, anniversary of her death, & holidays.
Cemetery is < 15 miles from home…with a Krispy Kreme not far past it. Mmmm, hot donuts [/wipes drool]
Aunts/Uncles/Grandparents, including those in the same cemetery; never.
Last time I was there, there were a couple of rectangular dirt patches in the grass. I looked at her marker & thought, “So I see you have new neighbors, are they nice?”
My mother has been dead for over a year. I haven’t visited her niche. My dad has been dead for almost 8 years. I took my mother to see his niche once, to make sure the info on the plaque was correct.