Did you choose to have a gravestone when you were bereaved and do you regret it?

[ZolaBudd]

walked past the graveyard this morning and was considering how when my dad died we never considered either a burial or an interment of ashes. So no grave. Didn’t want anything really. (He was very loved!!)

Wondering if anyone had a grave or similar and regrets it.
Hope this makes sense

Cemeteries are fascinating places. Wandering through some of them is a lovely, tranquil thing to do. I love reading a little about who they were, when they were brin, when they died, the type of gravestone etc.

I also love Commonwealth War Graves too.

It's also nice to have a focal point for the deceased.

They are a great part of our history.

I'm all for traditional burial and I don't like cremation....it feels too 'hindu' like when the body is burnt on a floating raft etc. It's nice for Indians, but burning isn't very British or Christian.

I think I'd like a bench. I always read the plaques on the benches as I'm out walking, some give such a vivid picture of the person who died. I walk as far as the bench belonging to the lady who 'liked drinking tea', have a sit with my book and then head home. Some are sad - some feel celebratory - and some have a real sense of history.

There is no headstone anywhere for mum and dad. They were scattered together. Half were scattered of the coast in the UK and the other half off the coast in NSW Australia. Sometimes I'm ok with that, others I wish there was something with their names on if only to show they were here.

Yes I regret it - my mum was catholic and was insistent on wanting a grave with headstone and I would have felt bad not to do it. We have put everyone's ashes there since and put a note on the headstone for each person so it's a nice idea but it's a pain to have to visit to look after it and it's a source of guilt that I could really have done without for the last 30 years.

Apart from the catholic aspect my mum had an irrational fear about being cremated when she was somehow still alive and thought there was nothing worse than being burnt alive. I would argue that being buried alive would be worse!

@iolaus that sounds really lovely 🩷

The Catholic Church okayed cremation about 60 years ago @jenpil. It's a bit upsetting to hear you say it's not Christian.

Graves for some family members but not others. Miss having some sort of marker for people like my granny. Two great uncles who died in WW1 and are buried in Belgium with headstones and that means a lot. Hope to visit again in the future.

This is a really helpful thread. I regret my dad’s gravestone. I get the sense of guilt that a PP mentioned. I think not having a grave (for e.g. me) is actually a very sensible idea, and one - strangely - that I hadn’t fully considered before.

My Nan was a Catholic , I thought she would want a grave site, as she was quite traditional. But she requested cremation & scattered at sea at a specific place. We have a place we can go back to in memory of her. It’s quite special to us.

My paternal Grandfather has a plot with a grave stone - it makes me sad as no one is able to visit regularly as we don’t live near there. My Granny also moved away - I’m hoping that when her time comes his ashes will be moved to be nearer her.

DM is buried not too far from where I live but I only visit once or twice a year, sometimes not at all. I’d rather go somewhere she liked and remember her there.

When she died we didn’t know what she would have wanted and did consider cremation and scattering ashes in the sea or somewhere else but I had a kind of visceral reaction against it and I’m not sure why.

No, my daughters ashes are in a little pot and one day I hope they will be with mine. Whether that's scattered or something else I don't know. I'd like to be made into a diamond

I have also stipulated (although I won't be there so won't know!) that my ashes are scattered quickly, and I absolutely don't want them to be kept in someone's living room/cupboard/whatever. I also don't want them split up, or made into jewellery or anything like that.

We didn't do anything for my DF as we were too upset.

I don't regret it at all 10+ years later. Neither me or my DM were going to be visiting a grave and we both remember him all the time.

Definitely no benches. I used to work in an organization that had a lot of memorial benches. It got depressing for visitors in a stressful situation that every bench was in memoriam. And benches don't last forever - a bench collapsed when a family sat on it, we had to get rid of it and then the family who had donated it turned up out of the blue and were upset 'their' bench had gone.

After that debacle benches were strictly limited and came with contracts.

we couldnt find my relatives gravestones where they were buried, it was very upsetting

otoh i have revisited a gravestone of anotehr relative, and that, too, was upsetting.

My DM has a grave with a headstone & I hate it. I can’t face visiting very often to think of her in there but then I feel huge guilt at not visiting. My dad died long after her & had the irrational fear of being burned, that someone else mentioned, but wanted to go in the grave with mum. After he died was told he couldn’t be as it was full, previous grandparents there already. So he was cremated & I buried his ashes in her grave with the vicar officiating. I feel huge guilt still to this day about having him cremated against his wishes but I couldn’t do both, bury him & in the same grave.

I was a very young adult when my mum died suddenly. Had no idea how to plan a funeral. My mum's death also meant we lost our home (council house and not allowed to take over the tenancy because we weren't eligible) so we had to find new homes for ourselves. Mum had no assets to help pay for a funeral.

Mum's family is catholic, but we (her children) aren't.

My mum's sisters were very helpful and took over funeral planning and she had a full on catholic funeral and wake. My sister and I were left with thousands of pounds worth of debt throughout our twenties because our aunties planned the funeral, had a big performative cry over my mum and then fucked off and never paid a penny towards it.

So mum still doesn't have a headstone, over a decade later, because they cost a fortune and I know for a fact she would hate for me or my sister to get into debt again for it. She would tell us to spend the money on our kids instead. She would also have gone mental at her own sisters for what they did.

Occasionally, we hear from distant family members that my mums headstoneless grave is often discussed and the "family" think it's terrible. Yet there is still never any offer to help out.

DH is still on my windowsill, he looks out over the garden he loved so much. I always thought I would want to scatter his ashes soon after he died in a place that he loved, then he died and I discovered I am not ready to let go yet.

My sister is scattered in the garden of remembrance along way from here, I never visit there but I do have a rose in the garden in her memory.

For my dad there are some violets in the garden.

There is no right, no wrong way to remember a loved one.

A silly, uninformed, and rather prejudiced post. There were cremations in Britain as far back as the Middle Neolithic period. There were burials of cremated remains at the very first iteration of Stonehenge. It’s a very, very longterm practice in Britain.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10094088/1/CWillis_PhD%20thesis%202019.pdf

My Mum died when I was young. I have no where to go on special days. I'd like somewhere to go. I'd like to take flowers there on Mother's Day, her birthday, Christmas.

I don't really remember her. Just snippets now and again

It doesn't need to be a gravestone. Just a something.

I'm not even sure where her ashes were scattered and my Dad is useless.

My dear friend chose to have a green burial. Where you are buried in a compostable coffin and then have a tree planted on top. This is down in a bluebell woods in Kent where you can do a lovely walk around. It is such a special place when the bluebells are out and I feel connected with my friend whenever i go to visit. There arent any markers on the trees so you dont know specifically which tree your person is buried under (unless you make a mental note of it at the time of thier burial) but I think its quite nice in a way.

My son’s ashes are with us. When the first one of us dies, me or my husband, we will be scattered together. I did not want his ashes to be apart from us. My mum and dad have a grave miles away and I feel guilt that it is not visited and covered with moss. I loved them so much and the guilt is bad.

I've opted for a direct cremation and popping my ashes in the nearest dustbin! My grandparents have a grave and my DM is forever fussing, getting the stone taken away every few years to have the lettering redone...I'm sure my GPs would be horrified!

When our son was stillborn, I was no in place to make logical decisions and DH doesn't make them at the best of times so his ashes were scattered over the gardens of remembrance at the local crem and we had a plaque put there. It gave me great peace initially and I went weekly but then over time, and when we moved, it really started to upset me that we had done this. After the 10 years was up, we removed the plaque and now have it at home. If I could have the time back I'd have kept his ashes but I try hard not to think about it tbh.

When my Dad died this year we had a private cremation and had his ashes back in a box to inter in with his parents in the family graves. Only my aunt kicked off at this, saying that she didn't give permission to the Vicar (they'd fallen out years before) and my sister and I then faced the horror of having these ashes but nowhere to put them. I still live in the village we moved to when Dad bought land here, my sister suggested the churchyard so Dad now rests there under a tree with a stone. I find it very comforting to walk past it every day with the dogs and just go to sit with him... but there's a bit of me that recognises it's not what Dad would have expected. It's never an easy choice which is why DH and I have updated our will to tell our kids what to do so it removes their stress.

My parents were both cremated and before they died they were very very clear that they didn't want any headstones or identifiable places where they 'were'. They didn't want us to feel that there was somewhere we had to go so they chose to have their ashes scattered in the cemetary's memorial garden by the funeral director and said they didn't want us there when it happened.

I still have DP's ashes and when it's my turn they will be placed in my coffin and we'll be together again. But no headstone or memorial for us.