Graveyards…
I’ve just started reading “Gilead”, a novel by Marilynne Robinson. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and is in the form of a letter from an elderly father who is dying, to his young son. Early in the book, the elderly father tells of going with his father, when he was but a boy, on a search for his grandfather, who died while in Kansas. They find that the grandfather has died, and go to honor him at his grave in the late 1800s.
There was a phrase the author used, about the small graveyard ‘going back to nature’, which struck me. She (he if you count it as being the character speaking) talked about how that idea gave the impression of vitality, but in fact it all looked parched and stricken…an image with stuck with me. It reminded me of two small graveyards I have seen in the last year and a half. The first is up in the Black Diamond Mines, in Antioch, CA, where we went on a field trip with Maya’s 4th grade class. The cemetery is filled with those who died when this was a thriving coal mine. So many children.
The next is a cemetery that is located behind a Girl Scout camp in Hayward, CA. We went there for an all day (overnight, actually) planning session last year, and when the girls were busy and the moms weren’t, I went and explored. The neighborhood was mostly Hispanic, and as it was older, it was sad to notice how many of the graves were for children. Also very sad to see how many had been broken by people up there to party, as evidenced by graffiti and broken beer bottles.
I thought of the contrast to the other, more recent, cemeteries I have visited. Ted’s father, my Grandfather, and my Great-Grandmother are all buried in cemeteries with lush green grass and markers laid down flat into the ground, where they haven’t yet been forgotten. The sprinklers still come on at scheduled times, people still come to visit with flowers, the lawn is still mowed regularly.
And I had to wonder…once these newer cemeteries are full, and there is no one new to impress, how long before they dry up and become deserted? Will all of the people who cared for those who are buried there be dead and gone? Does the money we have paid for burials pay for upkeep of the cometary? For how long? One of my grandmothers, still alive, has purchased her plot next to her already deceased husband…how long before the grass there is dead and dry? Or, perhaps, have these older cemeteries ALWAYS been this way, dry and barren in the summer, overgrown, green and lush in the winter, because the people there were not wealthy, because sprinklers were not yet invented…and what of the desecration of the headstones? If people go and party in a cemetery, do families pay to repair the broken headstones? Is that why they started putting them low, flush to the ground?
It seems a sad thing to me, to take away the beauty of the old fashioned headstones, because of the crassness of those who do not care in the least.
9 Comments
Starshine
“And I had to wonder…once these newer cemeteries are full, and there is no one new to impress, how long before they dry up and become deserted?”
Such a good question. Burial sites are expensive, and it would be nice to think that they will be maintained for generations upon generations.
The truth is, however, that while the body returns to the earth, the soul lives on. It brings me comfort to know that while my body will decay and return to the earth after I die, my soul will live on in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy. 🙂
Jimmy
I’m looking for a new homestead with a cemetery on one side and a horse pasture on the other! That would be heaven on earth! Oh, and a library/museum across the street would be cool!
Karen
We have a tradition in our family (as many Chinese do) where we visit the graves of our deceased relatives annually (although I haven’t been able to keep up as often now that we have young kids and are in a different city). By the same token, I’d like to keep the tradition as my kids get older so they have an appreciation for their family and culture.
They’re having this terrible labour dispute in the Catholic portion of the cemetary in Montreal where my uncle is buried and the grounds are such a mess, everything overgrown. It’s been over 3 months, and hundreds have not been buried, just sitting in freezers. I feel just terrible for all the families who have not been able to bury their loved ones and have a real sense of closure.
Maya's Granny
Karen’s comment reminds me of graves in Interior Alaska. They pre-dig in the fall for burial during the winter. If more people die than predicted, they wait in the freezer for the ground to thaw so a grave can be dug.
Old cemeterias are both interesting and sad. We can see things in a clearer light — the number of children’s graves is a stronger statement than statistics in a book. It is like the birth and death dates in a geneology. It tells you in a very startling way that those statistics were about real families.
Cherry
I grew up half afraid of cemeteries and half in awe. As Karen mentioned is the Chinese tradition, we would go annually to where our “local” ancestors were buried to pay our respects and celebrate. These were my only experiences at cemeteries as I hadn’t lost a loved who wanted a funeral.
One day around Christmas while visiting Eric’s sister’s family in Massachusetts, we were looking for a place to go sledding, and my SIL suggested the cemetery. I was shocked and would not get out of the car when they stopped. They thought I was being silly, but I refused as I found it disrespectful. Apparently it was a very normal thing to do there.
Riley
Graves of children always make remind me to be happy to have my children alive and healthy. Even when they’re screaming bloody murder and embarrassing me at the grcoery store.
Py Korry
That graveyard has been a party spot since I was in high school. I’m not sure how kids get up there at night since the park is closed, the gates are locked, and the road up there is pretty far from the main road. But it happens, and you’re right about the crassness of people who don’t think twice about damaging headstones.
hellomelissa
i hope to be either in an urn or returned to nature. ashes to ashes style.
laluna
Have you been to the one in Alamo. When we were young we would go up there and walk around. It was a bit haggard. When Pops died we wanted to bury him there and they told us it was full. Recently we went up there and they are now having new burials there. The place is really picking up. I wonder how in 93 it was full and then in 2000 it isn’t. What did they do? Move out people.