Visiting Graves

[Sundae]

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.