Some of you celebrated Halloween last weekend. In Sweden there is a bit of confusion about this holiday, because historically, All Saints' Day was/is 1st November, but in our calendar the holiday was moved (1953) to the Saturday before the first Sunday in November. Since then, we have sort of re-introduced some American Halloween traditions again, so have kind of ended up with two similar holidays which sometimes coincide, and sometimes not. This year, with 31st October being a Sunday, followed by a week with the schools on autumn leave, followed by All Saint's Day this weekend, it has seemed like a very long holiday!
Last Sunday - Oct 31 - when it was sunny, I went for a walk to the larger cemetery on the outskirts of town (opposite direction for me compared to going into the town centre), and put a candle on my maternal grandparents' grave.
Yesterday (grey and damp but not windy) I went and put one on an older family grave (my mother's grandparents) in the old cemetery closer to where I live. I never met them, but because I walk by that grave very often, it has sort of come to represent for me all the others that I can't visit. Yesterday when I got there, there were already three candles lit - some other relative(s) must already have been there.
Today it's been raining all day, and for the first time in a long time, I've not set foot outdoors at all, but chose to just stay in. For exercise, I took the vacuum cleaner for a walk through the flat... I also spent quite a bit of time on a Sepia Saturday post on my family history / old postcards blog, Greetings from the Past. The Sepia prompt included a donkey, which led my thoughts to the photo of my great-aunt Gerda below... Click here it if you want to know more! ;)
12 comments:
The grave is such a beautiful, sad, and lonely sight. So you have family living in town?
Ginny, one or two cousins of my parents (whom I never knew very well and haven't seen in years). None in my own generation that I know of.
THose are both such great tributes to those who've gone before, so I'm happy to see that effort on your part. I don't have any real family graves in this area at all. Maybe someday I can go to where they lived...many miles from here.
School children here have been on autumn break this week, too. It showed in the reduced number of people on local trains, and vastly increased numbers on long-distance ones.
Your cemetery walk has reminded me that I have not been in that direction for my after-work walks in quite a while. We still have family graves on the cemeteries in both my town and the next one, but not many relatives living in our area, and none we are close to.
Meike, when I was in town earlier in the week there seemed to be quite a lot of parents + children about, I guess some made use of the school holiday to go shopping for winter clothes etc.
Thanks Barbara. Not much effort on my part involved though, as the formal responsibility for these two graves does not lie with me (my aunt, living elsewhere, pays a fee to have them cared for). But I pass by the older one often - living nearby, and frequently walking across that cemetery.
I needed a laugh, taking a walk with your vacuum made me giggle. i know you are happy to find others had the same thoughts as you did about visiting the grave. it looks both sad and pretty
In recent times all my family, both immediate and distant, have been cremated, so I have no graves to visit. Their ashes were scattered in a Rose Garden of Remembrance, at the Crematorium, and their names entered in a Book of Remembrance. In overcrowded Britain it's the most ecologically friendly thing to do, to save occupying ground that can be used by the living. Cremation is the acceptable way here in Spain, too.
Sandra, thinking of vacuuming as exercise is a "trick" I sometimes use to get it done... ;)
CG, cremation is increasingly common here too, but we still have a variety of choices, ranging from coffin burials, to individual urn/ash burials (often re-using an old family grave), to burying/scattering ashes in a place with many name plaques on the same monument, to scattering the ashes in a Garden of Remembrance and just enter the names in a book, as you describe. My own parents had coffin burials because that was what dad wanted. (Their grave is in the same churchyard as many ancestors on his side of the family.)
It's nice that you have your ancestors near you, mine are scattered all around the country. It seems that burials are becoming less and less these days, still see them around but many are choosing cremations instead of taking up room on the land.
Amy, I have no statistics but I'd say cremation is the most common here as well now. Some still like the ashes buried in a special place marked with a stone or name plaque though, and there are alternatives for that as well.
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