“Simple, simple, so simple.
Infinite gratitude towards all things past.
Infinite service to all things present.
Infinite responsibility to all things future.”(Houston Smith, religious practices scholar, 1919-2016)
I’ve been drawn to cemeteries for as long as I can remember and visit them whenever I travel. So many silent stories. And memories of my own: each December 24th step-grandmother would take us boys to visit the dead. We’d trudge through the cold winter day, all the way across town, en route traversing the Old Jewish Cemetery which served as a public park since no one had been buried there since the Nazis ruled.
We made two stops at the Städtischen Zentralfriedhof (city’s central cemetery). First Oma’s late husband, who’d been drafted a foot soldier soon after their wedding day and gone missing, presumed dead (‘fallen’) somewhere in Russia. He didn’t have a grave of is own–one of the hundreds of anonymous markers stood on guard for him. Next stop, after schlepping up and down lanes, chilled and bored, at my ‘real’ mother’s grave. She’d died a long time ago, well before we might have bonded.
Oma showed us how to tidy up and carry wilted flowers to the compost heap. We stood in silent prayer. Due to my limited prayer repertoire, this always left me unsure as to what to say; I probably whispered a before-going-to-bed prayers. Before leaving, we placed an advent-wreath and lit a red storm candle: because it was Christmas Eve. I don’t think I understood the point of the outing, other than that what we’d been told: to honour the dead is a solemn duty . . . and a prerequisite for Santa’s visit later that day.
Does any of this trigger a memory? Do you recall funerals or cemetery visits? Who was there? Who’d died? What religious or cultural customs do you remember? Perhaps you’d like to/need to talk to others in your family to flesh out the details. Another fine opportunity to re-connect.
Jot down you remembrances, a few sentences may be all that’s needed. If you feel up to it, please post a COMMENT below. I look forward to reading yours.
Fran sent this photo from her ongoing family history project. “. . . some little lives, just discovered, three baby siblings of my grandfather Thomas, sleeping back in Ontario; died in the late 1800s, one at a months, another at 21 days. Perhaps erected when the rest chose to leave for wilds of Alberta. The babies names are Infant Son, Oliburnus, and Marge Thomas, all of my family,” she writes, “A hauntingly sweet memorial.” Photo © Catherine Reiss (http://geneofun.on.ca/names/photo/1056411).
I enjoy visiting the Royal Oak Burial Park. I have family buried there. Its a meditative place to me. Even though its beside a highway and close to suburbia I always feel as though I’m separated from the world, alone with the many memories of all those who live there.
On a side note after having done some extensive family tree work lately one of my favourite finds are the headstones of very long last family. So much to wonder about. Thanks Peter.
My dear father Roger (1922-1989) is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Burnaby, along with his parents and brother. It was the custom earlier in the 20th century for families to purchase enough plots to bury everyone together. Our Roman Catholic faith included the practice of embalming, visitation with an open casket, funeral mass and full burial in an ornate (and often expensive) casket. I had not been to my father’s grave since his burial in 1989, having moved to Vancouver Island that same year.
In 1996 I was on business nearby with time to spare. The office told me where to find his grave, as I could not remember its location in such a large cemetery after 17 years. I stood at his headstone, feeling unprepared for this moment of connection with him. Thinking how to mark the occasion, I reached into my purse and took out the brightest shade of lipstick I had (orange), spread it thickly on my lips, knelt down and planted a big kiss on the polished granite. I told no one about my visit. It felt good to be there and see his final resting place again.
Some months later, my identical twin sister went to visit that cemetery, taking her two small children to see their grandfather’s grave for the first time. She walked up to it and was shocked and more than a little upset to see a bright orange pair of lips perfectly visible on his stone. Her first thought was “what hussy has been here to visit our father?”. She removed the lip print. (My father had re-married a woman not popular amongst most of my 10 siblings). When my twin recounted her experience to me, I reassured her that it was my lips that had kissed his stone.
Imagine my/our surprise that my lipstick kiss stayed visible in the spring rains for months. It brought a smile to my face to imagine my father, who had 9 daughters and loved women, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
I recommend a thick lipstick kiss to anyone visiting a loved one in a cemetery. You never know what reaction it will get, or how long it will last.
Mom and grandma visited their loved ones at Easter, bearing flowers, and for grandma, a few tears. My tradition has been – sometimes – to attend the Soulstice celebration at Royal Oak Park. One year I met Rhonda who was writing poems for any visitor who would tell their story. I showed her my family plot with five stones and an empty space for me. Right there she sat down and wrote this:
“She knows her place – a patch of grass among this granite congregation. She will find her rest next to the wise women who have come before her. We will wait for you, they whisper on salt air the wind brings in from the sea. We will show you where the bees find the sweetest clover. We will listen with you at dusk for the nightbird who flies low over the stones calling all of our names.”
I am comforted.
I too had a comforting experience when, after avoiding a visit to my dad’s grave for many years, I finally found his marker inside his late wife’s family plot. He’d died, so I’m told, in social isolation, a very unhappy man, probably suffering with some form of PTSD. At last, so I felt that day, he’d found a safe place amidst a family.