Our family cemetery

Of Cemeteries and Loved Ones

This is about taking care of our loved ones as best as we can — given that they are all deceased and in the cemetery!

A couple of Sundays ago, after church, we stopped by Fresh Market and picked up four or five bunches of fresh, beautiful flowers. Most of our loved ones would have a fit if we tried to stick plastic flowers on their graves! We had with us scissors to trim the flowers and a sidewalk edge trimmer to clear weeds from the headstones.

After the headstones in the four cemetery plots were cleared, and all the flowers were distributed, we stood back and said a psalm and a couple of prayers, feeling close to our loved ones who mostly had to double up in each plot to accommodate seven of our family members. We have visited the cemetery and our loved ones as often as we can get there — wondering, of course, who will visit us when our time comes — as it will come to all of us.

As I was thinking about this piece, an article appeared in the New York Times titled “My Summer of Haunting Cemeteries” by Will McGrath (August 23, 2026). Near the beginning of that piece, McGrath writes, “visiting cemeteries you will feel the jittery rhythms of the modern world recede, the physiological converse of being on your phone.” Or in other words, the pleasant feeling of dropping out of your frantic everyday world to a peaceful, different plane of life.

The point here is that when you make time to visit your loved ones in the cemetery, you not only honor them in the here and now, you also will be rewarded with peace of mind in your own, too-busy life. As McGrath concludes: “Death is so close. Life is everywhere. Everywhere.”

Food for thought!