Visiting Cemeteries

Monday, Labor Day, I packed the dog in the car and made the two hour drive up to Grand Rapids, mainly for the purpose of visiting the cemetery.  It was the 3 year anniversary of the death of my mother, and, as I had the day off from work, felt inclined to go and visit.

I will admit, quite freely, that had it not been for one or two conversations with my mother prior to her death, I probably wouldn't make frequent visits to the cemetery.  However, every time I went home to visit, I waited for her to ask me to take her out there, so she could visit my father.  I never quite wrapped my head around why we had to drive all the way out there, almost always in the midst of a bleak, blustery, and frigid winter day.  When I looked up at the cold stone up at the top row of that mausoleum, I never felt the presence of my dad. Inevitably, while there, mom would say, quite wistfully, something akin to "When I'm gone, nobody will come here."  Nobody has ever been able to lay a guilt trip on me in quite the way my mother could.  So, of course, I try to get there several times a year.

I've been reflecting a lot on this tradition of cemetery visiting.  Frankly, it seems to be dying out...pardon the pun.  As a kid, I remember that the visit to the cemetery was an obligatory ritual.  My family in New Orleans has a massive, above ground tomb--as only New Orleans cemetery tombs can be, and my great grandparents stated that any family member could use it when the time came.  On Memorial Day, All Souls Day,  Independence Day, anniversaries of deaths, or any other sort of national holiday, I remember going with my grandparents, and my mother, out to the tomb.  It was a half day affair, while my grandmother and mother weeded the whole area, swept it, washed down the tomb, replaced dead flowers, and basically did housekeeping.  Given the time spent there, one could almost compare it to a vacation home (but not one I'm too anxious to visit anytime soon.)

I remember dreading those visits because, as a child, I was bored to tears. And, as most children would, I found it a little bit creepy and morose, spending all that time hanging about a cemetery.  However, in retrospect, I understand why it was so very important.  We honor our parents and grandparents while they are with us, and this is a way of doing so after they depart.  More importantly, on a personal level, I remember that there were always stories told during those hours.  If it hadn't been for those visits to the cemetery, I would probably know much, much less about my great grandparents, great uncles and aunts, cousins and all the many souls in my family who have found their final resting place in that massive tomb.

I do not believe that my mother and father are hanging about on the top row of the mausoleum up in Grand Rapids.  But I have come to be a bit more like my mother and my grandmother in regards to cemetery visiting.  The frustrating thing is that my parents did not opt for a grave below ground. They are, literally, high up in a wall.  Yesterday, when I arrived, it was cold and rainy.  Stupidly, I was attired in shorts and a t-shirt, and therefore, I sat in the car and stared at the stone, containing their names and their birth dates, and the dates of their deaths.  I did pray, and I admit to talking to them.  More so, I was moved to remember things about them and about our lives together as a family.  It is a good place to remember, honor and reminisce.  I guess, in the end, I'm grateful that I don't have to spend time weeding and cleaning the area around the tomb because I hate yard work as much as I hate death.  But there is something disturbingly untraditional about the wall.  I have this strange urge to want to touch the headstone, as if, somehow, that will bring me closer to my parents--but it is too high up and too far removed.  And yet, writing that now, it seems a silly concept, since I keep telling myself that they are not there.  I suppose it's human to have a need for the tactile--something to touch when the actual person is not there.

When I was in Louisiana back in July, I spent some time walking through a very old cemetery.  I was surprised to see graves going back to the early 1800s that were still cared for.  Some had flowers resting over the stone. Some had little civil war flags waving next to them, indicating, I suppose that the person had been a soldier.  But there were quite a few, as one would imagine, that had gone neglected for years.  There were, disturbingly, too many little graves, indicating the burial of small children or infants--something that was probably all too common during the 19th century.  Many of the stones were illegible, and I could not help but stand there, sadly, and wonder about the stories behind those graves.  There was nobody left to remember them, to tell stories, and to care for their tombs.  And yet, it was not too difficult to imagine the scene, much like the one from my own memory, of the spouses, parents and siblings, coming out and tending to the graves of their loved ones all those years ago, and desperately trying to find ways to reconnect with the one whom they lost.  Now that I am the cemetery visitor, I no longer think it is a silly thing and I regret that many of my own contemporaries don't seem to consider it an important tradition to continue.