Visiting Graves

How lovely for you, op.

You sound like quite an ungrateful cunt.

It's called respect for the dead, and it is a hallmark of civilization. Perhaps you would be happier with the savages on Sentinel Island.

Oh god no.

I've never been to my mother's grave ever.

[quote] My mom and aunt keeps trying making me promise I am going to keep the graves up in the future, but as an only child with the rest of the family dead, I told them no. I’ve done enough caretaking for them when they were alive.

Good Lord you are a dick. At least lie about it to keep them happy while they are still alive.

Continue to Keep your thoughts exclusively on yourself. It’s so you!

In college I knew two girls who would visit the local cemetery weekly and take the flowers home to their apartment. Their reasoning was that the people were dead and couldn't really enjoy them like they could.

Today I learned my mom and her sisters have been visiting their parents’ graves for the past few Memorial Days. I hope to join them next year...

I’ll also make it a point to visit my parents’ graves when that time comes (although once they both die I intend to retire in another country).

r6, LMAO!!!!

I know someone who is part of a group that visits and tends to the graves of unidentified people in my city. She does that because she's a decent person who believes that everyone deserves to be remembered.

I've been to my parents graves a few times since their death, but it's not a ritual for me.

The way any individual grieves is personal. No one should tell another when or how to grieve.

That is exactly what I would tell these two, that and nothing else. Let them wonder.

Just make a little shrine with your loved ones' photos somewhere in your home and place flowers there. Only go to the graves when you feel the need. The remains may be at the grave but their memories are with you in your mind.

There are a few I wouldn't mind pissing on.

Tell them what they want to hear to put their minds at ease. They'll never know the truth, so no harm done. If it's possible to hire a service or contribute to a charity that tends to graves, you could do that. I agree with OP that these rituals are meaningless, but obviously not to those who perform them, so comforting them with little white lies would be a kindness.

One of the reasons I prefer cremation is that you can take your loved ones with you.

OP here. I forgot to mention they will be cremated and their ashes spread. They want me to keep up the graves and markers they’ve already purchased but won’t be buried in.

The city already keeps them up.

[quote]They'll never know the truth, so no harm done.

Either the mom or the aunt will know.

A boy's best friend is his mother.

I think we are all assuming the Mom and the aunt wants this done after they have died, so no, they won't know.

R19, the distinction is that unless the ladies both die at once, one will be aware of the OP not visiting the grave.

Do you think they'll be buried on the same day?

My mom goes once or twice a year. She picks up flowers and visits her parents and other family members.

[quote] OP here. I forgot to mention they will be cremated and their ashes spread. They want me to keep up the graves and markers they’ve already purchased but won’t be buried in. The city already keeps them up.

That's just ridiculous! It would be nice if they could donate the graves and markers to someone who can't afford to pay for their own -- maybe look into that for them, OP. Otherwise, I'd reassure them that the city handles upkeep and say that you'll be sure it's done properly. People can be so silly!

This isn't about how the OP grieves R11. It is how the mother and aunt grieve. I, personally, wouldn't bring flowers either on a regular basis. It is about fulfilling a pretty innoucous request from a parent and aunt that you can bail on as soon as they "move on".

Visiting graves is macabre because all you can think about is what is happening below your feet. After three or four months, the body's yellow-green complexion has turned brownish-black because the blood vessels have deteriorated to the point that the iron inside them spills out, becoming brownish-black as it oxidizes. Also around this time, the molecular structures that hold the cells together break away, so the tissues collapse into a watery mush.

And in a little over a year, the corpse's cotton clothes disintegrate, as acidic body fluids and toxins break them down. Only the nylon seams and waistband survive. By a decade in, given enough moisture, the wet, low-oxygen environment sets off a chemical reaction that turns the fat in your thighs and butt to a soap-like substance called grave wax. On the other hand, drier conditions lead to mummification. Because throughout this entire decomposition process, water is evaporating through the thin skin on the ears, nose, and eyelids, causing them to dry out and turn black, aka mummify.

By 50 years in, the tissues will have liquefied and disappeared, leaving behind mummified skin and tendons. Eventually these too will disintegrate, and after 80 years in that coffin, the bones will crack as the soft collagen inside them deteriorates, leaving nothing but the brittle mineral frame behind. But even that shell won't last forever.

A century in, the last of the loved one's bones will have collapsed into dust. And only the most durable part of their body, the teeth, will remain. Teeth, grave wax, and some nylon threads.

Save some of the ashes, go to the gravesite and surreptitiously dig a hole, pour in the ashes and replace the sod. There, they will be there. Jesus, what kind of son won’t reassure his mother that he will do this small thing that obviously means a lot to her.

When I lived in Manila, we would visit our relatives' graves for three straight days, culminating on All Souls Day on Nov 2. The cemeteries would be packed, and in October-November it can get hot and muggy, so the well-to-do put their dead in air-conditioned mausoleums so that they can pay their respects in comfort. The wealthy Chinese-Filipinos go even further, building elaborate structures with fully functioning bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and game rooms for mahjong. You can house the country's homeless in these things.

My mom bought a grave and had her mother's ashes buried there. I like that better than just spreading the ashes to the wind or water somewhere. We have a place to go visit, if we ever want to. My mom's going to have her ashes buried in that same grave.

Who the hell still gets buried? Wtf

I know a woman who visits her dead grandson's grave a few times a year to talk to him. She used to work in the medical field, so she's well aware of the scientific facts and doesn't disbelieve them. She misses him and wants to talk to him and believes that it's possible to do so, just as she believes that it's possible to communicate with Jesus and/or the Christian god by praying -- I understand all that (though I don't share her beliefs). But why is it necessary to fly to a distant city and rent a car to drive to the cemetery and sit on a folding chair at the graveside in the weather (at least it's in CA!) in order to do that? She knows the child isn't in the grave, she says that she believes he's "with Jesus", so why can't she do her talking at home, or maybe in a church? I'm not unsympathetic but I truly don't get it.

Cremation and scattering of the ashes completely solves that problem, there is nothing to visit or take care of. I would rather remember people when they are alive than to visit some grave site.

I always thought visiting graves was a morbid waste of time.

However I changed my mind after my partner died by suicide. Mental health issues. It’s very comforting and peaceful to visit and remember him.

I know where my gggrandparents are buried and it’s kind of cool to visit their graves when I’m in that town. My ggrandfather’s sister died young of pneumonia and I can feel her spirit very strongly there.

[quote] In college I knew two girls who would visit the local cemetery weekly and take the flowers home to their apartment. Their reasoning was that the people were dead and couldn't really enjoy them like they could.

These two "girls" sound like a couple of sociopaths, "enjoying" flowers from graves.

I go once a year between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, make the rounds of my parents' and my grandfather's graves, put a stone on each headstone, daven El Malei Rachamim for each one, cry. And that's it til next year.

I find it macabre worshipping the dead like people do. Pumping up the body with chemicals and putting them on display like museum pieces. Then constantly worshipping at the grave, is that how people want to remember their loved ones?

R24, I see that my comment went directly over your head.

I guess it went over mine as well. Care to explain what you meant?

[quote] She used to work in the medical field, so she's well aware of the scientific facts

Please show me the "scientific fact" that proves that there is no afterlife. That sounds like the same "scientific fact" that "proved" Covid couldn't have come from the Wuhan Bio-Weapons lab.

Everybody has a different feeling about visiting graves. I don't like to visit graves. It doesn't mean you don't care about the deceased.

R39, I didn't mean that science disproves the existence of an afterlife. I meant that science proves what the condition of a human body is after it's been in a grave for several years. I guess the dear departed's soul or spirit or essence (or whatever believers in an afterlife want to call non-corporeal remains) COULD still be hanging around in the grave, but I don't know why it would want to.

I love visiting graves of famous people and will travel the world to do it, my only family, not so much.

OP register them at Find A Grave and visit and leave virtual flowers, then you can say you are doing what they want.