I had a thought as I drove by a graveyard today.
Graveyards are often beautiful places. The grass is kept cut and weeded, and the trees trimmed. They’re often build on hillsides. There is always a neat little fence around them. Really, a location like this would be the perfect place for a park or playground.
Which makes me think…
Does anyone think it’s funny that we put so much energy into creating a resting place for the dead, when really, let’s face it, they’re dead. A grassy hill or a dumpster really isn’t going to make a difference to someone who’s dead, right?
Of course, I’m not suggesting that we simply put out the dead with the weekly garbage collection or anything, but isn’t it funny that we spend so much work making an aesthetically pleasing place for dead people?
Now, naturally, I realize that the reason the place is so beautiful is that people come to visit their dead loved ones, and will find it most comforting to see them in a place that is clean and beautiful. I guess this is just something I never really “got.�
When you think about it, going to visit someone at their grave site is really just going to look at a rock, under which lies the body of a deceased loved one. They are dead, and what you’re talking to at the grave site is just the shell of the person who once lived. If you want to speak to them, in a spiritual sense, you’d have just as much luck doing so in their old bedroom, their favourite restaurant, or their private haven. Quite honestly, you could speak to their spirit just as easily in your car on your way to work.
I think that graveyards symbolize our society’s tendency to dwell on the past. The land that graveyards are built on and the work that is used to maintain them would be far more productive if directed toward a park, school or reserve. And yet, entire companies are built on the idea that a dead loved one will only find peace if their body is buried under a piece of rock with some pretty words written on it, on a hillside with freshly cut grass.
And at the same time, in other parts of the country, children go to schools that are too poor to maintain the safety and cleanliness of their playgrounds, and wild animals starve to death because humans have taken so much of their land.
What’s really priority here?
Weddings are for the parents, a baby shower is for the mom, and graveyards and funerals are for the living. Yes, you could make the argument that there’s more spiritual energy connected to the remains of the person you once cared about, but you’re right, it’d work just as well to talk to said person in your car or at home. It’s interesting that we all profess faith in these religions that preach life after death(most of the world’s religions, anyway), and yet w’re so afraid of it, and it’s usually treated as a tragedy. I was actually just thinking today how we should party like crazy at funerals to give the dead a good send-off to heaven. Or Hell, if that’s where they belong. But if they’re going to hell you probably hated them anyway so it’d be good to have a party to celebrate that their dead. Death is nothing more than jumping from one path to another. So you’re right, why not just use that land for something else? Freaking cremate everyone and store their ashes in little jars and have a nice efficient facility that will robotically retrieve your loved one’s jar so you can talk at it. Of course maybe then people would realize how silly it is, and funeral homes and graveyards would go out of business.
More importantly though, has anyone thought of the goths in all this? Where will emotionally disturbed teenagers go to make out and goof off with ouijia boards if there are no more graveyards? Have some sympathy, for crying out loud!
September 6th, 2004, at 12:02 am #Today I was driving near Mt. Hope cemetary and thought that if I owned four plots next to each other and up against the road, I wouldn’t have to buy a parking permit at UR.
December 5th, 2005, at 5:52 pm #