Never. The body is an essentially purposeless shell after death, the obsession with being buried at all makes no sense to me, naught but taking up land the living could be using.
Further, you are no more able to reminisce sitting in such an antiquated and quite frankly morose location than you are in your own bedroom. Life is for the living at any rate, and I’d hope any of my family/descendants had more sense than to waste their time mourning me in a field.
As unlikely as it may be, there is also the tiny chance of a zombie apocalypse beginning and a cemetery is the absolute last place you wanna be in that situation.
I would visit my father’s grave, but the chances of me showing up again for any reason in West Texas are pretty slim.
I’d like to visit my maternal grandparents’ graves in Arkansas and see how that town has changed, but it’s not likely I’ll be in that neighborhood anytime soon either. One thing about my grandmother’s grave though: She died in 1995, and after she was buried my parents were told it would be a couple of weeks before the date of death could be added to the gravestone. Seems there was some old guy in his 80s who went around the region doing this, and he wasn’t scheduled to go through again there for about that long. Well, no ever went back to that town to see if it was actually done. A year or so ago, I started wondering about that and wrote to the local government asking how I could find out. I received a very nice reply from the mayor of the town herself, a very nice lady who said she had some of her staff go out and take a photo of the grave, and she sent me a picture. (Yes, the date of death had been added.) There’s probably not even a chance in 1 billion that I’ll ever actually live in that town, but if I do, she’s got my vote.
Reminds me of in high school, when me and a couple of buddies would go cruising through the local cemetery late at night with an unsuspecting dupe, then at a prearranged signal stop the car and all jump out and flee in mock horror at a perceived terror, leaving the dupe behind on his own.
I voted rarely.
I actually go to the cemetery to do genealogy research on occasion when I’m in an area where ancestors are buried. I go when someone in the family is buried in the same cemetery, but I don’t really make a point of making a special trip to family graves, as most are at least 400 miles away.
OTOH, I occasionally visit the creek where we scattered my late brother’s ashes 13 years ago (it’s local) and I visit my late SO’s grave when I find myself in west Tennessee where he was buried four years ago this week.
Only my sister one a year, gone too soon.
If I’m at a cemetery I’ll visit a loved one staying there.
This. Exactly.
…to drive the car away and leave you in the cemetery? Too bad none of the dupes were that quick thinking, 'cause that would have been funny. (still funny anyway, sounds like something we would have done)
Never; the person I cared about no longer exists. Not there, and not anywhere else.
My grandparents’ town has what’s called Decoration Day in the summer. Families go out to the cemeteries and decorate them. It’s usually a big party, with lots of good food. My grandmother’s family was in that area back in pre-Civil War days, and the old cemetery out in the boonies – which is not the one my grandparents are in, they’re in the “new” one in town – is filled with my ancestors. I remember us going there when I was growing up, and tables of food were set up outside the gates.
I took the keys with me. 
wellanuff, that made me cry, it was lovely.
I only really have my parents who I cared about. My dad died almost 16 years ago and was cremated. His ashes are scattered close to my aunts house, at a place he loved. However, it’s several hundred miles away and I’m rarely there. I’ve certainly not made a special visit since we did the scattering.
As it happens, we’re planning a visit at the moment. My mum died 3 weeks ago, exactly. The funeral and cremation were last week. Our intention (my brother and I) is to scatter her ashes in the same place later in the year. I’m not sure how often I’ll return after that. It’s just a nice place, and we have to do something with the ashes. My parents are gone and I don’t feel their loss any more or less in any particular place.
I love cemeteries as places though, as I do churches. There seems to be a special kind of stillness there. I also like the reassurance that time passes, people once dearly loved and remembered are gone and the world moves on. I am strangely comforted by that, even in times like this when I’m devastated by loss and unsure how I’ll ever cope with it.
Aww hon I’m so sorry 
It’s like joining the shittiest club in the world, isn’t it?
As long as you’re not hurting yourself or others – anything you do to cope is ok, and don’t let ANYONE tell you any differently.
It gets easier, I promise. If you ever need to vent, PM me. Seriously.
I live 700 miles from the graves of all of my loved ones. I go home about once a year. Before my Mom died whenever I was in town I always made it a point to go to a childhood friend’s grave and say hi (and also say hi to his baby brother who died at birth when we were just toddlers). I’d also drop by and say hi to my old English teacher, another childhood friend and my grandfather. Pretty convenient when you’re from a small town; pretty much everyone is buried in the same cemetery.
I was still in town for a few days after Mom was buried and I opted not to go to the grave after the funeral. I went home again for Christmas and didn’t go then, either. I’m not ready. I think someday I will be .. but not yet.
Plus Mom always made me promise that when she died I wouldn’t come to her grave and talk to her because she always thought it was ridiculous that people do that. She always said “I won’t hear you and I’m gonna be too busy in Heaven doing cool stuff so it’s not like I’d talk back even if I could.”
I may do it anyway, just to piss her off considering she dropped dead on me way too early.
I drive past the cemetery that my father is buried in almost everyday. I haven’t been to the grave since he was buried 23 years ago.
My girlfriend has her father’s ashes in her office so I see him quite often.
I do like going to old cemeteries and seeing famous dead people.
Yesterday was the second (Hebrew-calendar) anniversary of my father’s death, and I went to his grave site, which is pretty close by. I visit on the anniversary, before some holidays, and when any significant family events occur. I probably should think of going more often, but life is just so busy most of the time.
The only times I visit the grave of anyone in my family are when I’m accompanying someone else in my family who wants me to go there with them.
Wherever the dead may be, they are not there in the cemetery. All that’s left are their decaying bodily remains, their caskets, and their headstones. But the persons they once were either are on another plane altogether, or exist only in our memories. Whichever is true, I will not find my deceased loved ones in a cemetery.
I’m sorry for all the losses people are mentioning in this thread.
I love churches too, but in much the same way I love cemeteries. They are beautiful and interesting, with stories to tell… and then I get to thinking how much it costs to build and maintain them and whether that statue over there really needed to be gilded, and why marble and not just wood or granite, and couldn’t all this money and materials have been better used for something else… and then I start to bitch about religion and I end up feeling guilty about appreciating a nice church (or mosque, or synagogue, etc), because all of it represents money and time selfishly spent rather than truly doing what the religion claims it’s purpose is.
Waste of land, waste of space, waste of money and resources… but damn beautiful and compelling anyways. I guess I end up forcing myself to think of them as Art, because its the only way any of it make sense to me.
Haley Joel Osment, is that you?
It’s not hatred as such, more disinterest (on my part), I also find them slightly disturbing. Two of my father’s neighbouring graves are for still born or S.I.D.S babies. That upsets me a lot. There are several graves of very young children in that cemetery, and for the most part the graves are not attended to very often (overgrown, no proper headstone, etc) and I find that hard to look at as well - I fully understand how hard it is for the parents, but seeing a forlorn little grave with a white cross and a faded, dirty, teddy sitting in lone attendance is heartbreaking. When I do visit my dad’s grave I go to say “hello” to the babies - even though I’m an atheist and don’t believe in an afterlife, I just feel bad for them
Conversely I find myself suppressing a giggle at huge monuments inscribed “never forgotten” or “always remembered” that have clearly not been visited in many years, despite the grave only being 10-20 years old.
While the wife understands the attractions a good cemetery has for me and others, she can’t shake her upbringing that taught her they’re dens of terror to be fled from. We visited the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China, in Melaka, Malaysia, one time, and she was noticeably uncomfortable the whole time.
On my way to work & back I drive past my parents’ gravesite 10 times a week, and can see their stone as I pass. Does that count?
I know my sister is not under 3m of soil in a mass of very slowly decomposing flesh, but in the same way that m wife and kids are not drops of ink on a piece of paper and the photos help me remember them, going to the tomb is the best way, for me, to remember her and think only of her.