On Graveyards

One of my good friends died last week and his funeral is tomorrow. This morning while at church I asked where he was going to be buried and found out that he's going to be buried in the same cemetery where my second wife is buried. This type of cemetery is a great disappointment to me.

I have traveled all over Europe and visited cemeteries in most countries between Sweden and Turkey. All of them are more interesting than the new cemeteries in the United States. It seems like the new cemeteries want to have gravestones put in that do not rise above the level of the grass. That way it is easy for them to mow the lawn without having to avoid the headstones.

This week I traveled through a number of small towns in central Utah. The cemeteries that I saw, though small, were interesting. There were headstones all shapes and sizes and the names on them as well as dates could be seen from a little distance away and not just standing right above them. Where my second wife is buried in Orem Utah I can't tell where her grave is without walking right up to it. My parents and maternal grandparents are buried in a similar cemetery in Pocatello Idaho. It is easier to find their graves because they are all in a row near the northeast corner of the cemetery.

My grandson is buried in one of the older cemeteries in Provo Utah. His name, dates, and even his photograph are on the upright headstone so when I visit it I seem to have a feeling that he is really there. I rarely even visit my second wife's grave, because it is so impersonal with all of the flat markers in the whole cemetary looking just about the same.

One time I accidentally came upon a small cemetery in a small town in either France or Switzerland that was fascinating. From the inscriptions and other decorations on the many upright graves I could just feel a number of things about the life and times of a person buried there.

I know it would cost more and it wouldn't be as convenient for the cemetery keepers but I wish we could go back to the way graveyards looked a generation ago or in the small towns of Europe or Central Utah. I was a depression baby, but honestly some things were better in the past than they are at the present time.I will probably have more to say about that at some time in the future.