How Often Do You Visit a Cemetery and Why?

I don't really know why but I've always had a thing for cemeteries. More so the past three years since that is the only way I can visit my parents:( I've never been afraid or thot they were creepy. Maybe because I was only nine when my Grandfather passed away - it's just always been "normal" and a part of my life to visit all my family members in various cemeteries all over the city. Plus, my sister is really into genealogy, so I've gone with her a lot in search of family graves.

Being from Cincinnati, there are some beautiful cemeteries there. The main one is Spring Grove - that has A LOT of Cincinnati's "famous" people in it and some really old ones!! I used to work right up the street and would go on my lunch hour and just walk/drive around. I love that they have a lot of trees and plants labeled so you know what they are. It's beautiful!!!

I just visited a cemetery last Sunday - a horrible story about two little boys murdered by their father two years ago - I had been wanting to visit them - I heard they have a very unique headstone. Well, of course I was teary-eyed; not only is their stone in the shape of huge Lego blocks, it has their picture on it. Very emotional!!

What I found very interesting years ago was two actors from my favorite TV show are buried right here in Ohio!! Paul Lynde and Agnes Moorehead from "Bewitched." So, of course I had to visit them!!!

Unfortunately, my kids didn't inherit the "cemetery bug" from me so I'll continue to visit by myself or with my sister. I take pictures, walk around and try and find the oldest ones. When I find a really old one I'll stop and just imagine what the area looked like back when they were buried. Brought in on a horse-drawn carriage, no doubt.

So, lots of good and not so good memories; also some fun and funny memories - I almost always have my camera with me!! One time my Mom, Dad and sister were up visiting and I wanted to show them this really old Pioneer cemetery near where I live. Well, I don't know why she did it, but I have a picture of my Mom hugging a tree!!! I'm sure my sister or I dared her or something; she had a great sense of humor and probably just did it to shut us up!! And I'm not talking about when I was a kid; this was just a couple years before my Mom passed on!!! We were all adults!!! lol!!!

Thanks for the great question!!

I haven't visited a cemetery in a long time. But now you've put it into my head. I don't have relatives buried in this area, so I don't have people to visit. But it's so extremely peaceful. And I like to look at the gravestones.

Several years ago, when I was visiting in another state, a cousin took me out to the cemetery where a lot of our common relatives are buried (first half of the 20th century). Burials aren't done at that one now, so everything was old, the bushes were a little overgrown, and it was really interesting. He also took me out to "visit" other relatives at a more modern cemetery, which had a lawn like a golf course.

Way back in the dinosaur days when I was in college, a couple of us students had to make a visit to an old cemetery in order to study the grave markers, because we had to make a couple of prop gravestones for a play. One of the caretakers discovered us, decided we weren't too crazy, and talked to us about the famous people who were buried there, what sorts of people wanted the real fancy monuments, and what sorts of people wanted the plainest ones. It was fascinating.

I almost never visit cemetery's anymore. I used to go to my brother's grave site on every birthday and anniversary of his death. I would stand there and sob. Eventually, I decided that I could think of him and visit my memories of him without standing at his grave.

There is one cemetery that I would recommend seeing and it's in Boston. It's ancient (as far as U.S. history goes). All of the grave stones are decrepit and falling apart, and they all have skulls and angel wings on them. It's wicked awesome!

My late Dad... is at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
I and we and my kids, visit him whenever we can, and for all special occasions and holidays.
My kids, LOVE to go there and visit him. They love him.
And I miss him.

We bring him flowers from our garden, that we grew ourselves. He always knew, what gardeners we were and he loved seeing us, love gardening.
At his memorial, there was a rainbow... RIGHT over his niche. Only over his niche. It was like a special message to us, from him.

The last time I was in a cemetery was on vacation in Paris. I don't go to them, and we don't plan to be buried in one.

I don't go often, but when I do it's to help maintain the flowers or make sure there's no vandalism. I don't "visit" the people buried there because I don't believe that a burial plot is important to the people who have deceased. I believe they're only important to us. Our loved ones aren't actually there. They're in Heaven and in the places we loved them most.

One summer when I was still in school, my family and I spent the summer in Germany, driving around seeing what there was to see. Being tacky American Tourists where there usually aren't any. We stopped at this one cathedral that had multiple sections of tombs, so we made up a game. My parents, brother and I got out some paper and took different sections of the church recording the dates and names on the tombs in our sections. We met up at our car and looked over our papers. We each competed for a different category, like longest life, shortest life, longest death and shortest death. My mom had some one who passed in 90AD and I had one who was only a child, but had been laid within his mother tomb. It was really interesting and we were sure to be respectful and quiet as we moved around and took down the information.

Not really a grave visitor, as far as relatives go.
My inlaws visit their parents graves and place wreaths every memorial day and for the winter holiday.
Cemeteries, by nature **have** to be kept nice. That's why you pay for perpetual care. It's....well, perpetual.
Lots of history if O. cares to look for it in cemeteries.
We have gone & done rubbings of family members headstones.
Ans some people are just drawn to the morbid. They think it's "deep".
Cemeteries really ARE for the living, not the dead.
Many cemeteries welcome the public, host community events, etc.
Of course above all, respect must accompany you on any visit to a cemetery.
I think less people make the trip to visit graves of their lived ones.
With a more transient society, most people font live in the same city as their now-dead ancestors.

Never, although you make it sound lovely. :)

My dad died almost 7 years ago, and I've never been to his grave except on the day he was buried. I feel no connection there. For me, I feel more connected to him whenever I "talk" to him wherever I happen to be, or whenever I visit places that were special to us. I believe that the second he died his spirit left his body, so a cemetery just houses his physical remains, and that holds no appeal for me. Everyone else in my immediate family (mom, husband, kids, and I) wants to be cremated, so it won't be an issue. My brother and his family prefer burials. To each his own.

I have never been to a cemetery before. I have not lost anyone close with me. My mom's parents died before I was born and my dad's parents are still alive. My husband lost his dad when he was 8 years old, but he was buried in another country. So, I have never ever been to one. I kind of get chills when ever we drive past one though. I'm not sure why, but I just do.

After my mom died when I was 11 years old, my dad took us to visit her grave every Saturday. It was a family ritual. Stop at Albertson's to buy flowers, visit the cemetery and place the flowers in her headstone, clean the headstone, and walk around a bit. Then we would get back into the car, and stop at Albertson's again to buy fried chicken, jojo potatoes, and cookies. We would eat lunch at home.

Every week, there was at least one new burial. It was very interesting for me to see how many flowers the younger deceased people would get. And there were certain headstones (like our mother's) that received constant care.

My father is now buried next to my mother. I haven't been back to visit the cemetery since his funeral. I live about 2000 miles away from my hometown now, so I don't get to visit often. The last time I was there, I still didn't go to the cemetery. I guess I don't feel my parents' presence there any more.

Both of my parents are now deceased and are buried next to each other in a cemetery just a few miles from our house, but I haven't been there very often. I do go on Memorial Day because my dad was in the navy and they have a special Mass that they hold that day and my mom always went when she was still alive (he died before her), so me going is sort of my way of honoring their memory. But I haven't been back this year since Memorial Day.

When I was living in this small town in Connecticut many years ago, there was a cemetery in town that had gravestones dating back to the 1800s and 1700s, which I found fascinating. Some were even late 1600s! I also lived in Boston for a year and there are many historical grave yards scattered about in the heart of the city, and those are really neat to see as well (at least, I think so!).

I live right next door to an historic cemetery so we go fairly often when family is here to visit. Hub and I walk thru it once in awhile just to ground ourselves.
The stones are cool to look at and read the 1700 and 1800 dates... and so many were immigrants, and so many were children.

My older sister was stillborn and sometimes I feel like I spent half of my childhood at the cemetary. The church we went to was about halfway between our home and the cemetary and quite often as we were leaving the church parking lot my Mom would say something like, lets go visit the baby. So we would drive over to the grave and check to make sure everything was okay, or place flowers ect. Since I now also have my brother, parents, paternal grandparents, a few aunts, uncles and cousins also there--I don't go.
I like to remember them alive and the special moments I had with them. I firmly believe that they are not there, their spirits have crossed over and have moved on to a better place. If I feel the need to talk to them I do from home.

Now the funny part is I recently joined a Paranormal group and we have talked about doing investigations at few local cemetaries because of the stories we have heard about them. It would be interesting to be able to confirm or debunk the stories. Dartmouth Cemetary in Green lake Wisconsin is supposed to have a mausoleum that will crack if someone sits on it or the person will be pushed off. -- Yes, disrespectful to sit on a mausoleum.

I can't remember the last time I went to a cemetery. I don't go visit any of my family that has passed, though not all of them were buried, some of them were cremated and scattered at sea etc. I honestly think the last time I went was when my grandmother passed for her funeral. I might have gone once or twice with my mom after that but I don't think so.
We don't have any good, old cemeteries here so we can't go to those. I like to visit those when I've vacationed places because they have so much history.

i grew up next door to a cemetery, so i get where you're coming from. it is fascinating, especially the old ones. we had civil war era graves too (i say "we" - of course it's on public property, but it's one of those old hidden, mostly forgotten cemeteries in the country, not a lot of traffic at all). the old ones were my favorite. BUT then i had an aunt whose stillborn daughter is there, and she went batsh** crazy and tried to tear the family apart some years ago, and i had a cousin commit suicide, and he is now buried there (he was 24). for a long time there were too many bad feelings for me to visit. not for myself but mostly because of what my family went through, and i had moved out of state at that time so couldn't come and be with them. and i have a lot of anger towards both my aunt and my cousin, for that. so those are my own hangups. now that you mention it, now that i have a 6 year old son, i think it's time we visit. to me it's important to teach him respect for the dead and all the fascinating history that goes along with it. i think i'm almost to a place where i'd be interested. and it's perfect weather right now with fall creeping in. maybe tomorrow when i go out to my mom's :) what a great question, thanks!

We have gone often, not so often lately, to the cemeteries to put flowers on the graves of our family that are buried there. We have two relatives in one cemetery and 5 relatives in another so we usually go to both. We put the flowers on and usually remember the person and what they meant to us and talk about how we miss them for now and so that's the reason we go.....to remember them and put flowers on out of respect. We used to go way more often and plan to go again soon so I think birthdays, other special days are usually when we try to go...to remember.

My fiance and I used to walk through the cemetery next to his sister's house all the time. About 4 years ago, there was this HUGE open field inside it that we used to go play frisbee on.
Now it is covered in headstones.
We used to like walking through and reading all the quotes and poems on the headstones. There were a lot of really old headstones.
I loved coming across the double headstones of husbands & wives.
Would see where the husband died 1st then his wife after about a year.
Morbid maybe, but romantic in some way.

I have always wanted to visit Hollywood Cemetery. It is on my list of places to visit.

I would go visit some family graves if I could. My aunt & uncle have headstones next to each other, but it is back in Illinois. They're really the only people I know of that have been buried. Everyone else I've lost don't have headstones.

I have only gone a few times to a cemetery, and it was for the burial of my grandparents and husband's grandpa. When I visit my aunt we always go on walks through her small town and pass by the cemetery and have walked through it a couple of times.

We also love cemeteries. We love finding historical cemeteries and visiting. In college I took a class on Death and Dying and our final project was to take pictures at cemeteries and write a paper on the trends in what people put on their tombstones. It was the best class ever.

I don't do graveyards. There are people I loved whose bodies are buried there, but THEY aren't there, so what's the point?

There are only two people that I have lost are in my area...and they are buried at Arlington National. We don't go as often as we should...

I love to go to cemeteries to check out the dates of peoples lives...there are some around here that date back to the 1700s!!! The tombstones are still standing!!!

I think it's disrespectful to go walking on people's graves and messing with their headstones. I would be really upset to walk up to a loved ones grave and see someone all over it. (I'm not saying YOU are all over it! I have seen people with their children running through graveyards, like they are playgrounds. No respect that is what bothers me. If someone was just walking through and observing, that's totally different.) Just me, though. I don't care what other people do, of course. I am fortunate enough to not have graves to visit. I have been to funerals, but no one close to me.

Like another poster, I grew up with my daddy always going to clean his mama's headstone. Then we did my mama's and this Memorial Day, I had to do my daddy's, It was hurting to have to do that ritual alone--but when I go I feel them all there. I KNOW they ar not there--but I feel the memories. I told my son that when I become a G., that I will take my grandchildren there for celebrations and special days with the relaative that they will never know. He thought it was weird--but I am the mama!