Do you take flowers to the cemetery? Memorial day

[toomuchreality]

Just curious...   no right or wrong answer


It's Memorial day weekend-
Do you go/take flowers (or?) to the cemetery on holidays? 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Yes, we have, though we won't this year. We used to live near a national cemetery. My dad and my husband's dad are there. Neither died in service but both were severely injured in Vietnam and Korea respectively. There's always a Memorial Day service at that cemetery, and we've been several times. 

[sesfw]

No we won't but will go to the Memorial Day service at our local park.

When DH#2 was a kid in Indiana going to the local cemetery was a holiday event.  Take a picnic lunch and talk to all of your ancestral relatives.  Cemeteries are beautifully kept and a peaceful place.

My DH#1 was cremated and placed in the Pacific Ocean so I can visit with him by going to any ocean.  He is travelling the high seas.  DH's DW#1 was also cremated and is in Lake St Clair so she can travel the seas also.

Closest cemetery with relatives to me is in Kingman AZ

[Tiny]

I do not. But in the past my mom (and therefore me cause I got dragged along as a kid and then to help out/drive when I was older) would visit the Dead Relatives regularly. Memorial Day (weekend) was a "visit" day - maybe she'd put a little flag on a few of the graves - but generally no flowers. Birthdays, Deathdays, Mother's Day and Father's day generally involved "flowers" - sometimes cut lilacs from the yard or maybe planting a geranimum or marigolds or petunias.

I try to make the rounds and visit the Dead Relatives atleast once or twice a year. I don't leave anything these days. I've got lots of dead relatives -- most of the men served in WWII in some capacity.   Most of the women did some sort of community war related service.   

[Happy prose]

sesfw This is probably a crazy question- when you put ashes in the ocean, do you just put them in? Do you have to go out on a boat? I want my ashes in the ocean, and need instructions for my daughter. Lol. Also, do you have to get some kind of permit? 

[Artemis Windsong]

I do not place flowers on relative's graves because they are in another state.  The flowers are nice but the passed relatives has some remaining awareness appreciating the visits.

My late older brother would decorate.  His ashes scattered around the cabin he loved that we used to own.  Everyone still calls it his cabin.   

My other older brother decorates his first son's grave who passed at 2 y.o. from cancer.  That trauma was 57 y.a.

Our veterans cemetery is sadly nearly full.  They will be erecting vertical spots for cremains. The graves are decorated with flags but not nearly enough people show up to help place them.  I think they need to expand the flag placing to 2 or 3 days ahead and ask any visitors to decorate as many graves as they can.  Also, there are a lot of serving military here that could show up.

[Artemis Windsong]

May 26, 2019 15:04:38 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

sesfw This is probably a crazy question- when you put ashes in the ocean, do you just put them in? Do you have to go out on a boat? I want my ashes in the ocean, and need instructions for my daughter. Lol. Also, do you have to get some kind of permit? 

I suggest you check with a funeral home on ash scattering.  Or check online to see if the county has something.  The ashes do easily fly in the air so the chance to breath some in or get them in your mouth is high.

My brother wanted some of his ashes in a creek that he loved.  There could be no human remain ashes put in that public water. 

[TheOtherMe]

When I was a kid, Memorial Day was spent visiting all of the family cemeteries.  The route was the same every year.  We took along a picnic lunch.  It was our family, my mom's baby sister and her family and my mom's baby brother and his family.  We did not take flowers because mom said flowers for the dead are a waste of money.  Give her flowers when she was living.  

My two aunts would have already decorated the family graves as would have other relatives.  Lucky for us, both of my parents long ago ancestors are in the same cemetery, which is still on a dirt road (not a gravel road).  Their parents are both buried in the same cemetery.  

Mom's brothers and sisters are mostly buried in the same cemetery.  Dad's family is spread out all over.  

Mom specifically did not have vases added to the headstone she had designed for her and dad because of her feelings about flowers.  As soon as mom died, my sister had vases added and I doubt if dad knows he paid for it.  She asked the first couple of years if I wanted to help pay for flowers for mom's grave.  I told her each year that mom didn't like flowers on graves so I was going to honor her wishes and not put any there.  She doesn't ask me any more for money but I know she puts flowers out every year.  

My cremains, along with cremains from a few cats, will be buried next to my parents.  My small headstone is already installed because I think huge monuments are a waste of money.  That said, mom and dad's monument looks exactly as she would describe it to us while we were growing up, so she did get what she wanted.  

I have one cousin who was retired Navy and his ashes were spread at sea.  There is a huge monument for him at the cemetery where my parents are buried.

[sesfw]

Happy Prose ……… this is what was done with Bill's cremains

We travelled from AZ to CA and found a boat that would take us 3 miles off Pt Fermin in San Pedro (international waters).  We got a permit from the state ($12) and took a 4 hour excursion to the PT.  The boat captain had done this before and he has a large plastic basket for the cremains.  We took fresh flowers out, anything in the ocean has to be organic.  His cremains were covered by rose petals, the 'Mariners burial poem' was read and the basket was lowered to the water and tipped over.

I can still see his ashes in the water.  According to the poem, Bill is travelling the seven seas and I can go to any ocean and know he is there.

The captain gave the latitude and longitude readings to me so when it's my turn, my family will know where to place me.  The boat captain wouldn't take us without the permit.


Have a friend that passed several years ago and her family took the cremains to the local shore in a remote place and poured them out in the water.

Check your state for the scattering laws, then decide what you want to do.

[Happy prose]

sesfw That actually sound beautiful. I have to look into our local laws. Thanks.

[Tennesseer]

I visited my parents interred in an outdoor columbarium located in the Western Massachusetts Veterans Cemetery earlier this month.  Flowers usually placed on graves but not so much in front of columbariums.

[thyme4change]

No. Cemeteries are weird, and a bad use of land. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What we do to the dead is criminal. The future will judge us for embalming bodies, filling them with horrid chemicals and hermetically sealing them in a box. So gross.

[tractor]

No, my grandparents are buried about an hour away, and my folks are still alive so I don’t go to the cemetery. It’s probably because my parents never did, so it’s not part of my “routine”. While headstones and cemetery’s are a nice touch, I try to remember by keeping images and memories in my head, no visit to a burial site required.

[dezii]

May 26, 2019 15:04:38 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

sesfw This is probably a crazy question- when you put ashes in the ocean, do you just put them in? Do you have to go out on a boat? I want my ashes in the ocean, and need instructions for my daughter. Lol. Also, do you have to get some kind of permit? 

Just sprinkle where ever...not necessary to take boat out...u can figure once in the water they will be disbursed....suggest don't get all caught up in then...possible might want to keep some ashes in a container for deposit in your own garden...place to say hey to...just suggestion.

[Tennesseer]

May 27, 2019 14:55:31 GMT -5 dezii said:

May 26, 2019 15:04:38 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

sesfw This is probably a crazy question- when you put ashes in the ocean, do you just put them in? Do you have to go out on a boat? I want my ashes in the ocean, and need instructions for my daughter. Lol. Also, do you have to get some kind of permit? 

Just sprinkle where ever...not necessary to take boat out...u can figure once in the water they will be disbursed....suggest don't get all caught up in then...possible might want to keep some ashes in a container for deposit in your own garden...place to say hey to...just suggestion.

The majority of my parents cremains are in a columbarium. We later on had a family reunion at a beach my parents enjoyed and which they used to take their RV to during the winter months. We quietly scattered a vial of each of their cremains on the beach.

[Artemis Windsong]

All of the flags at the Veterans Cemetery were placed before 8:00 a.m. today.