Visiting Graves
 

I was reading on another forum (scab!) about leaving a stone on a gravestone when you visit (and the various reasons and religious significances behind it) and thought "well I've never visited a grave" -I thought you were supposed to take flowers, but I probably wouldn't have done. I reckon if I had a grave to visit, I'd take gardening tools and an old toothbrush in case it needed tidying up.

But in fact, all my dead relatives have been cremated, and I've never had the urge to visit the memorial plaques. It's just not my thing. But I know it brings great comfort to some.

So....

Do you visit graves/memorials?
What do you do there and why? (if it's not too personal/painful)

Yep. I do it as part of religious observance on certain dates - after Pascha (Orthodox 'Easter'), for example. And for personal reasons. And when I had the chance to go to Scotland, I looked up the church and graveyard in the little town my family comes from.

I've heard of leaving pebbles on a gravestone but have never done it. Do you (or anyone else) know what the practice means?

I visit Pop's grave every time I'm up home. I might pull some grass around, or clear the snow off, the stone. The family takes care of flowers, seasonally.

My family has a plot at one of the local cemetaries. I sometimes go there with the kids and talk about the relatives that are buried there and what they meant to me or others in the family. We usually take a broom and sweep off the leaves and dust. Sometimes we take a hose and some soap. My Dad usually goes once a year and repaints the trims and stuff.

It doesn't mean much to me to visit a grave site. I don't hold any real significance to dust and old bones, but from a historical aspect, I think it's interesting for the kids (and me).

The only grave I'd visit (so far) would be my parents' graves, and they are buried in Kentucky, far, far away. If I had a chance to go there, I'd definitely visit. (Both parents died in Mexico and I attended their funerals, but much later they were re-buried in the States. Long story.)

I've never heard of leaving pebbles on the grave, though, that's interesting.

most of the reasons people gve were for not leaving dead things (like cut flowers) there -stones are eternal

I believe the pebbles are a Jewish custom.
A Jewish brother of my lodge passed, and his relatives places small stones on the gravestone.
I inquired of one of them the meaning at a later time, and was told that it meant "I remember you.", or something along those lines.
The movies "Schindler's List" and "Bullet" (with Mickey Rourke) both have this tradition.
Perhaps a cellarite who's more acquainted with Jewish tradition could explain it better........

Leaving small memorial stones is traditional for Jews. I have several generations of family on both sides in local cemeteries, and fathers parents are buried in the jewish section of the large and quite beautiful city cemetery. you can tell who gets regular family visits from the collection of small stones on the headstones. I collect interesting little stones when I travel, and try to remember to take them when I visit his grave. he's buried with my mother's family in a beautiful little country cemetery that goes back to before the civil war, and is a great place for summer picnics.

My eldest brother married into the jewish faith, and when he was buried in the national cemetery outside Dallas, I got one of the empty shell casings from the honor guard and put that on his headstone a year later. If I don't bring anything special, I'll look around and find a small stone. It's a remembrance.

Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, both grandfathers, at least three of Robert Johnson's....

As I understand this, it's symbolic of maintaining a cairn of rocks on a desert burial, where weathering and critters may derange, and is a tending of the gravesite. Performing this is accounted a mitzvah. Doing this for, or with, one's Jewish friends without making any big deal of it will show your suavity and culture.

At this point in my life, I've not lost anyone close enough to me that I would feel compelled to visit with. I wonder whether I will visit my parents' graves after they die....... I tend to be self involved and apathetic by nature.....At any rate, I hope it is a good long time until I find out.

If you're lucky it will be. Losing your parents can only be second to losing a child.

Nope, this is a shell. The ego is a construct and illusion.
The only thing that lasts are memories and how they affect us.
I carry those with me.

Graves and gravestones are for the living. I don't go. Lost a sister to breast Ca when she was 32. I have not been back to visit the grave. My dad died and he is in an urn in my moms closet. I don't visit her closet either. I just doesn't mean much to me. Our bodies are but a shell for our soul or lifeforce. When the body is done, that is it. Discard the shell and move on.

My dad died 10 years ago, and his gravesite is in my hometown, a 60 min drive away. I have been to the gravesite maybe 8 or 10 times. When I go, it's when I feel like I need to go somewhere to cry in peace, to let it all out, without worry of someone interrupting me. I went more frequently after the fact, and actually think the last time was when I took my daughter there to show her where my dad was after another family death brought up the subject. Maybe 1.5-2 years ago?

On one of the first visits after the headstone was in place, I took a stone from around it, and carried it in my purse. Some time later, I put the stone in my jewlery box, and I think its still there.

I want to be cremated and scattered. My husband is against this, but I can't stand the idea of my body being preserved and put in a box to take up space until someone wants the land for something else. Since I don't want to deny him or my daughter of a place to do what I do at my dad's site, I likely will still purchase a lot, and have a headstone if I can, but just no body there. Maybe just scatter the ashes there...I haven't really thought that far. I just know I don't want my body in a frigging box.

My parents take my Grandad to visit my Grandmother's memorial twice a year - it's only a memorial because she was cremated, as my Grandad will be (ashes scattered with Nan) and as my Mum & Dad have asked to be when the time comes.

I'm not sure it means all that much to Mum, although there are flowers planted there and it is a measure of respect to tend them and keep the area tidy. If anything it acts as a focus for missing and loving the mother that has passed. For Grandad however, it is an important ritual. They had always agreed to have their memorial in the same cemetery as their family, in London, but I think as Grandad has weathered the years without her, he would have taken more comfort at having her close, in Aylesbury.

It's a moot point now, as he can't walk unaided and having her 50 miles away is the same as having her 1.5 miles away.

I'm glad Mum & Dad want to be cremated. I'd find the gravestone equally attracting and repelling. Attracting because I would want to stand there and remember them. Repelling because I would rather remember them when they were alive, and grieving at a stone is too horribly final. Also, I know it would fall on my sister to tend the grave (she and my brother live in Aylesbury, but my brother would never think in terms of grave tending) and I would feel horribly guilty - such a bad daughter - that it wasn't me.

My father is also buried in Kentucky, far from where I now live. If his grave was near-by, I would visit it, but I don't think who we really are has much to do with our bodies. I sat with my Dad as he died, and it was incredible to me how one moment it was my Dad lying in that hospital bed, and then he took his last breath, and there was no one there anymore - just an empty shell that had once housed my Dad's spirit. I think of my Dad everyday, so its not like I need to go to his grave to remember him or something, but I'd do it to honor his memory, if you can see the difference. I sometimes walk in cemetaries just to meditate. Our lives are all so short really, and sometimes I need to stop and remember what's really important. I loved my Dad alot.

well, we can do a road trip. You can pick me up on the way.

The original discussion I read was about "why do Jews leave stones..." But many people chimed in and said "I'm a Catholic and we do that too.." so I don't think that it's just Jewish, although I understand that it's a part of Jewish culture.

That is how I see it as well.

Maybe we should! ;) I see your location is in the Southwest, and so is mine. What part of Kentucky are your folks buried at?

A friend of mine's ashes are interred very near to my house. When I feel the need to be particularly contemplative I head over there and share a smoke with him while we do some thinking.

The family plot is in an area of the city that's not quite so nice. Even if I wanted to go, I couldn't find it on a bet. I mean, I might be able to locate the cemetary, but the plot? Never. My uncle is the designated family caregiver. Since my mother has annouced that she didn't like 'em all that much when she was alive (her siblings, mainly), she doesn't want to be stuck with them when she's dead. I think that means that she'll either be on the mantelpiece, or that my sister and I make a trip to Waikiki Beach or something like that when the time comes.

When I was little, and my parents wanted a weekend away, I stayed with a loving retired couple. Harry had been the gardener and Bea the British nanny for a wealthy family that built one of the mansions along the grand ave in the 20's.

When Bea died, Harry sprinkled her ashes in his garden, and from then on every one of his roses had a little bit of Bea in it...

uh . . . Either Louisville or Shelbyville, I think. Not really sure. Guess I ought to ask my family so I can visit if I ever get a chance. Supposed to be a family monument, or something.

I leave teeny tiny notes for the deceased....wherever I can safely hide them....in lettering so tiny, and on a scrap of paper so tiny and folded- no one would ever discover. And flowers. Yes, I leave messages! But that's just one grave.....
I guess I still try to keep in mind what they would like within the realm of the very few possibilties.

I don't visit grave sites. My uncle (still miss him very much), my grandparents, and friends live on my memory and I don't think visiting the grave site would make my memories any better. I have thought of this as I have almost lost my wife a couple of times. She really doesn't care what I do with her body, but I don't know what I would. I don't think I would visit the grave site, but she is my wife, and the sense of loss there would be much, much greater.

Like some others have stated, the grave is for the living. The dead don't really have an opinion.