Reclaiming the tradition of cemetery visits
November 7, 2024 at 10:50 a.m.
I had the good fortune of growing up in an era in which family lived close to one another and spent a lot of time together. My parents and siblings lived around the block from my maternal grandmother, and time with “Gram” was a mainstay of my experiences and memories.
Drop-in visits and conversations around the table, playing Canasta and Scrabble, taking us kids to the movies, the beach, bowling and the ice cream stand, working on a sewing project together . . . these were the mainstays of my childhood with my grandmother. These memories also include the many times that Gram took a few of us with her to the cemetery, to visit and tend to the gravesites of our close family members.
My grandmother lost her husband when she was in her mid-40s with three of her five children still living at home, including a toddler. My grandfather Ray died shortly before I was born and so I never knew my namesake other than through photos, stories and the many visits taken to his gravesite in St. Gertrude Cemetery in Rahway.
Cemetery visits were just part of the many things that Gram managed on a regular and rotating basis – and she approached them with the same sense of responsibility and discipline that she brought to the many tasks facing her as a widow with young children and elderly parents she had to assist daily. She would not let a holiday pass without visiting, but she also spent time there on a random Sunday, often after Mass.
I recall the cemetery visits quite vividly and even pleasantly. Gram often brought flowering plants and we were sent up the lane from where my grandfather’s grave was located to fill a container with water from an old-fashioned, squeaky pump. A few of us kids used to fight over who got to pump the handle each time.
But we also came to understand that cemeteries were very somber places as we listened to Gram speak to her husband and lead us in prayer. We got a glimpse of how grief can overflow any attempts to contain it when we saw my grandmother collapse in anguish at her husband’s gravesite following the commitment ceremony of her own father just a few rows away.
I recently shared these memories with a lifelong friend whose parents are also buried in St. Gertrude’s and who, like me, now lives a good distance from the Union County town where we grew up. I had lamented the few years that had passed since I’d made the trip out and we acknowledged the unfortunate reality that cemetery visits had fallen off the radar, especially when they required investing the better part of a day and travelling more than 100 miles roundtrip.
The practice of cemetery visits and the diminished standing they seem to have in our culture was described in a piece by one of our OSV News columnists, Effie Caldarola. In it, she wrote :
Graves are sacred ground, consecrated ground in a Catholic cemetery or in Catholic plots in a public cemetery.
Just as we Catholics love relics . . . we revere these mortal remains, destined, we believe, for the resurrection of the body. And this is the time of year when those remains seem especially hallowed.
It’s not macabre to love a graveyard. On the contrary, there’s a feeling of continuity, of belonging, of hope in resurrection. It impresses on me the shortness of this earthly journey and the gratitude I have for my loved ones.
But is the tradition of visiting graves fading? Everyone moves around so much now. We’re often far from our family graves. How many people do you know who visit a cemetery? On Memorial Day or All Souls?
We are admittedly a far cry from my Gram’s example of keeping our beloved departed close through regular cemetery visits. But my friend and I are going to make the trip to St. Gertrude’s together to visit our families sometime in the coming weeks – a good way to observe this Month of Remembrance.
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I had the good fortune of growing up in an era in which family lived close to one another and spent a lot of time together. My parents and siblings lived around the block from my maternal grandmother, and time with “Gram” was a mainstay of my experiences and memories.
Drop-in visits and conversations around the table, playing Canasta and Scrabble, taking us kids to the movies, the beach, bowling and the ice cream stand, working on a sewing project together . . . these were the mainstays of my childhood with my grandmother. These memories also include the many times that Gram took a few of us with her to the cemetery, to visit and tend to the gravesites of our close family members.
My grandmother lost her husband when she was in her mid-40s with three of her five children still living at home, including a toddler. My grandfather Ray died shortly before I was born and so I never knew my namesake other than through photos, stories and the many visits taken to his gravesite in St. Gertrude Cemetery in Rahway.
Cemetery visits were just part of the many things that Gram managed on a regular and rotating basis – and she approached them with the same sense of responsibility and discipline that she brought to the many tasks facing her as a widow with young children and elderly parents she had to assist daily. She would not let a holiday pass without visiting, but she also spent time there on a random Sunday, often after Mass.
I recall the cemetery visits quite vividly and even pleasantly. Gram often brought flowering plants and we were sent up the lane from where my grandfather’s grave was located to fill a container with water from an old-fashioned, squeaky pump. A few of us kids used to fight over who got to pump the handle each time.
But we also came to understand that cemeteries were very somber places as we listened to Gram speak to her husband and lead us in prayer. We got a glimpse of how grief can overflow any attempts to contain it when we saw my grandmother collapse in anguish at her husband’s gravesite following the commitment ceremony of her own father just a few rows away.
I recently shared these memories with a lifelong friend whose parents are also buried in St. Gertrude’s and who, like me, now lives a good distance from the Union County town where we grew up. I had lamented the few years that had passed since I’d made the trip out and we acknowledged the unfortunate reality that cemetery visits had fallen off the radar, especially when they required investing the better part of a day and travelling more than 100 miles roundtrip.
The practice of cemetery visits and the diminished standing they seem to have in our culture was described in a piece by one of our OSV News columnists, Effie Caldarola. In it, she wrote :
Graves are sacred ground, consecrated ground in a Catholic cemetery or in Catholic plots in a public cemetery.
Just as we Catholics love relics . . . we revere these mortal remains, destined, we believe, for the resurrection of the body. And this is the time of year when those remains seem especially hallowed.
It’s not macabre to love a graveyard. On the contrary, there’s a feeling of continuity, of belonging, of hope in resurrection. It impresses on me the shortness of this earthly journey and the gratitude I have for my loved ones.
But is the tradition of visiting graves fading? Everyone moves around so much now. We’re often far from our family graves. How many people do you know who visit a cemetery? On Memorial Day or All Souls?
We are admittedly a far cry from my Gram’s example of keeping our beloved departed close through regular cemetery visits. But my friend and I are going to make the trip to St. Gertrude’s together to visit our families sometime in the coming weeks – a good way to observe this Month of Remembrance.
The Church needs quality Catholic journalism now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your support.