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Originally Posted by ShaniFaye
if you're a person that doesnt care about that kind of stuff then be cremated and dont take up the space.
I was brought up to respect graves, I think digging someone up is not right...but them im still one of those that tries really hard not to step on the grave when I visit them for my genealogy research.
it could also be I've had a very emotional weekend concerning some of my long dead relatives and the thoughts of someone digging up graves pisses the ever living hell out of me
Its obvioulsy still very important to a lot of people as evidenced by the "decoration" weekends where older cemetaries are cleaned and weeded and cut back and flowers and decorations are replaced
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I'm with you on this one. Graves are as much a reflection on our culture as any human expression - asking the purpose of a grave is like asking for the purpose of music. Logically, both of them are wastes. Yet graves are what they are, and some of us feel strongly about them.
Grancey and I used to spend a lot of time exploring cemeteries, and we uncovered several things about them.
1) Almost everyone in our explored cemeteries is buried facing east - a grave turned north-south depicts someone who died in severe disfavor.
2) Seashells are symbols of freedom and can be found as decorations on slaves' graves
3) Other grave decorations include toys that represent what the person was fond of doing in life
4) People who don't have much money learn how to "make do" with whatever grave decorations they can find - including upsidedown coke bottles buried around graves as a border
5) Historical epidemics are easy to track by looking at the clustering of infant death dates in old cemeteries
And so on and so forth. Every cemetery we explored yielded tons of insight into an earlier time. I'm sad that Western culture keeps hitting a point where heart and humanity must be apologized for and explained.