Should we maintain Graveyards?

[acolyte]

The graveyards are mostly for the living if you think about it...its about closure and all that. And since a very large percentage of the planet is christian or some other religion, which dictates that the deceased must be buried (dust to dust and all that), i don't think they'll be gone anytime soon. Not only that, even if the current set of religions were to disappear, burying our dead would still be the way to go since this custom predates them, going back to the primitive eras.

Anyway...my opinion on it...sure..im ok with it. You might say its a waste of money, but if people want to be buried and give away money for a space or a headstone or whatever, who are you to say that they cant do that with their money, and i think that some graves are maintained via gov. taxes, and again i see no problem since most of the paying ones want to be buried, and if you don't want to be buried, well, your paying money so that someone can mourn a loved one and feel some small kind of closure after their death. Considering the ways our tax money sometimes is spent i don't think that this is such a bad trade.

 

[Seydaman]

That's something I hadn't considered actually.

I think it'd be really nice if it was routine to have gravestones protected, cleaned, even redone if necessary. Preserve the past and so on.

 

[Mobax]

Yes we should maintain graveyards. I offer the following 3 reasons why we should:

Number 1, graveyards show are respect for those who have passed. I don't just mean a place for relatives and friends to come and mourn. But more as they show our society values one another, we realize we are special, and shouldn't simply be cast into a pit or into the ocean. Graveyards imo show humanity's respect for human life and it's value.

Number 2. It is a place for loved ones to come and remember, some people go to talk to their loved one. It is a deeply personal experience and is a part of the human experience. In my own experience usually every year my family goes to visit the grave of my maternal grandfather, I never even met him, he died a few years before I was born. But it's still nice to have that connection, to see his name, and see how my grandmother and her children still love. It's the ultimate sign that you are not forgotten when you die. And I don't just mean you're remembered by family, I know I enjoy walking through the graveyard and reading the other headstones, seeing who else lived, when they lived, maybe learn a little about them.

Finally number 3. Graveyards are peaceful quite places, something our bustling, busy world can surely use. They are different from parks, in that they have that somber peacefulness to them. It's like visiting a memorial, or an old battlefield. It's a place for people to reflect. Also, similar to old battlefields, old cemeteries are tourist attractions, and they bring money into a local area.

To the nay-sayers who feel graveyards are from a bygone era, and/or they are a waste of money and land. Number 3 is directly applicable to you. There are many towns in the 13 colonies of America, and Eastern Canada, where their old graveyards are partially responsible for bringing tourists into their town. Those tourists buy gas, food, maybe stay the night in a hotel etc. To say they waste land is like saying the a beach is a waste of land. Or that Central Park is a waste of land. Not everything in the world needs to be built up and generating a profit.

 

[New Frontiersman]

One summer a few years back I actually did some volunteer work maintaining and cataloging a graveyard, it was interesting. The reason I did this is because at a funeral in a different town I noticed how many graves in the graveyard were poorly maintained, and it made me sad to think how many had to have been abandoned by their families over the years. Like you said, many of the graves were old, several had some of their text eroded and some had nearly sunken into the ground. It was my job to go through the graveyard row by row catalog each grave and clean the ones that were hard to read or otherwise dirty. It was hard work, but I found it satisfying.

But to answer the question I do think they should be maintained. Graveyards contain an important part of our culture and history, and losing that would be terrible. It is hard though, not many people are actually interested in doing the work it takes to catalog these graves, and the owners of the graveyards might not have the time or money to do it, especially for smaller graveyards. Still though, I think it should be done, so we don't lose that part of our history.

 

[Abomination]

In this day and age I see no point to having graves due to how reliable our recording technology is.

I've seen some cemeteries that take up MASSIVE amounts of space and I know very well that space is something we're going to run out of more and more as time goes by. It's also often on potentially fertile ground.

Then again I'm a pragmatist and am organ doning and donating my body to science when I die... I realize others might not be so and I guess I have to respect their wishes, even if I think it's stupid.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Uh, don't people pay for that service?

When you get buried somewhere, your family pays for the ground and employees of the graveyard maintain the site. If it's on a church burial ground it's probably maintained by the church staff.
I believe volunteers also help with these sort of thing.

At least that's how it works here in Netherlands >_>

 

[MetalMagpie]

Graves are a place for the living to mourn at and are generally maintained by relatives. Once no one is left who remembers the person or feels a connection with them, the site is no longer needed.

In the UK, once a grave is over a 100 years old it can be dug up to make more space. Generally they just make the hole a bit deeper, then rebury the old remains with the new coffin on top (and new gravestone at the surface).

 

[Madman123456]

We have plenty of land where we could put our dead. In my little town there was a coal mine about 60 years ago. Shitty tunnels with shitty static make it possible for sinkholes to form. You can't run pipes in some areas and you can't do anything with agriculture since heavy machinery might sink in and then you have half a combine harvester poking out of the ground.
So we have some farmers make their money with a bit of tourism, treating their land with light machines and selling produce americans would call "organic".
Dead humans and headstones are comparatively light so we have a graveyard right in the middle of town.

 

[MammothBlade]

Yes, the dead have to be remembered in some way. Graveyards are there so people can return back to nature. However, I'm all for upgrading grave technology. Instead of just engraved stone, have a (durable) tv screen with pre-recorded messages about the person who died. Maybe videos. Maybe soundbites. Footage of the person when they were living. Information about their life. Bring burials into the 21st century, mon.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Umm... Here graveyards are quite tranquil and beautiful areas, specially the older ones. They are way worth visiting and seeing.
The major graveyard of my home town houses spaces for all religious orders (due to law) and is extremely well maintained - there has been graves there since 1800s and even before when some ground was excavated.
But here is the thing - relatives has to pay for the upkeep of the graves of their family members, pay the Local Church to maintain them. (who are by law required to maintain all grave slots - of all religions, tho some, Jewish and muslim primarly pay to upkeep their own lot - tho there are graves of theirs among the others also)
But the general surroundings are beautiful and well maintained and even accessible during the harshest winters.
If the grave spot is not paid for, forgotten or abandoned then the church will remove the gravestone to a memorial area or bury it in to the lot allowing another person's urn and stone to be erected.

But all of the spots for graves and memorial stones are marked to the books. So even if stone is removed you can still go to the keeper of the graveyard to ask where the urn/body of your beloved is.

It is very popular for families to share the same plot (Like my father's side family spot has 4-5 generations).
But lately due to the ground being clay and soft the graves been sinking deeper. So there are few layers and soon another layer in the older areas.

There is also pet cemetery that was founded to south of the graveyard - this is maintained by people themselves and it is in quite good condition.

I say maintain the graveyards. They are important part of the culture, they tell us of out past. And the way we treat our dead tells a lot about our culture.

 

[lunavixen]

I think historical ones should be maintained, they are afterall, a part of history. While graveyards are for the living moreso than the dead, most modern graveyards here have caretakers but unfortunately, the old ones are not properly maintained, in the town where I was born, we have a graveyard with graves that go back to the 1800s, but they're sadly not too well maintained (we have wild rabbit issues and vandalism there), I have family in some of those old graves, I don't want their graves descecrated.

 

[Foolery]

Hard to say. Gotta agree with graveyards being for the living. My grandma passed just this summer, and my sister goes there every so often to leave flowers. She says it gives her peace of mind. I plan on being cremated. To me, my body is just a vessel. I'm mostly carbon and several other elements. The idea of my corpse sitting in a fancy wooden box taking time to break down and rot, creeps me out. Many cultures have practiced cremation. And I'm fond of the symbology it has. Fire represents purification, a clean and wholesome end to earthly life.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While I do see the lgoic behind for getting rid of graveyard altogether (less zombies about and waste of space etc) but telling telling that statement to your average joe people! All I'm saying is that not everyone will agree with that statement that we should no longer have graveyeard anymore.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I know that my country is renowned for the way we take care of the graves of our departed.

So going by that, I think yes, you should, as it is honouring the dead.

If don't believe in doing so, then don't.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yes, because graveyards are truly for the living, and a graveyard that has fallen into disrepair will upset mourners more than they already are, and a rundown graveyard will attract no tourists.

This. Graveyards are basically a city park that happens to be psychologically healing to some. If we can maintain city parks, we can certainly maintain our graveyards.