Rachel and I are planning our funerals. We’re reading Here When You Need Me, by Kate Braestrup, about a woman whose husband, age 34, went out for a drive one morning and never came back. Car accident two miles from their home. Rachel and I decided we should give each other instructions, just in case.
Rachel wants to be cremated. I opt for the traditional cemetery grave-and-headstone arrangement.
That’s fine, Rachel says, if that’s what I want. But, she asks, would she have to tend the grave? I tell her no, no special decorations needed, just so they mow the grass occasionally.
“I don’t want to be any burden,” I say.
That’s not it, Rachel says. She explains that she’d feel guilty if she didn’t visit my grave regularly (birthdays? wedding anniversaries? what’s the etiquette?), but if she did visit, it would ruin her week. She’d dread the scheduled day, and cry at the cemetery.
This hadn’t occurred to me. I always thought that, if I died prematurely, my daughter, and perhaps my wife, would take some comfort in having a grave to visit. Maybe on a small knoll, next to an oak tree, with my name chiseled into a granite headstone. I’d seen this scene many times in movies and on t.v., where the bereaved stands by the headstone and has a talk with the deceased. The presence of an actual decaying body six feet down made the griever feel closer to the departed.
Then I realized that I’d only seen this scene on t.v or the movies.
Did it ever happen in real life?
So here’s my question, for those of you who have a loved one in the cemetery. Is it a comfort, or a burden?
I never go to the cemetery to visit my sister. My mom and dad constantly fuss over who’s turn it is to put flowers on the headstone. It seems like a waste of money to me. Sis isn’t there. Her spirit is with us wherever we go.
Comfort. For me – I visited friend’s grave every single day for 6 months…then once a week…then once a year. Now it’s been a few years and I no longer think about going every time I am in town. In the beginning, though, when the grief was so tangible, it became a time set aside to be as upset as I wanted, and then I went back to life. It was a way to keep “separate” something that threatened to engulf me every day.
I can give you the cremation side of it.
My mother died when she was 56 (14 years ago). I have her ashes sitting on top of a bookcase in my home. My kids know the urn “contains” their grandmother.
It’s a comfort in a weird way. It does freak some people out when they find out what it is. The urn itself just looks like a really pretty big vase with a lid on it.
I would prefer to be buried myself, just because I am a crazy archaeology/history nut, and I love the idea of someone excavating my remains in a thousand years.
Even if you are cremated, you can have your cremains placed in a crypt, so that your loved ones can visit. A friend of mine visits her parents in their crypt around holidays, their birthdays, etc. It helps her, gives her some small comfort. On the other hand, my husband won’t visit his mother’s grave because he finds it sad and depressing. It just depends on the person. If she doesn’t want to visit or leave flowers, she shouldn’t feel bad or guilty about it. It’s completely a personal choice, no right or wrong either way.
We cremate our family members. But I remember seeing something on TV about ‘natural funerals’ where basically you decompose under a tree. I quite like the idea of returning to the earth afterwards.
I find cemeteries comforting, peaceful. The ashes, if kept in the house would creep me out a bit.
I am not a fan of cemeteries, although I think about how I ought to visit my loved ones more often. I think it’s nice to have the option to be able to visit. That and I’ve seen too many movies where the box/jar of ashes gets knocked over or vacuumed up.
My Dad is buried in a cemetery, as well as my Mother in law and father in law. I want to be buried as well. My Husband wants to be cremated… he doesn’t want our daughters to ever go and ‘visit’ him and waste their time being upset over something that is done and over… I don’t completely disagree with what he says, but they are going to be upset no matter where he is… the idea of his ashes in our home creeps me out…
The ashes don’t bother me, but there is something I like about the permanence of a tombstone. My great grandfather is buried in a parish cemetery in Iowa, with his wife. I’ve never been there, but I like the idea that I can go, and see the weathered lettering in the tombstones.