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

@MuddlingThroughLife

My dh was buried because his mother would have been upset if he had been cremated. But his grave is near us, not near them, because ds was young so I wanted it to be easy for him to visit. (Tbh I never considered burying him near his parents).

It's supposed to be a natural grave. There is a beautiful tree on it. There is a small marker but no headstone as such. His dad doesn't like the way it is, he is always unhappy about it. I am always very low after going there, I hate to think of him in the ground there.

There aren't many things that I think I could have done differently, in fact (a more conventional grave with a headstone would have pleased his dad more). But I am certain I don't want a grave. When I think of dh now I think of his bloody grave and the conflict about it. I want to disappear after I die and be remembered only in the odd photo or memory. No stone, no cold earth.

Personally, I prefer a burial to a cremation as I feel it is an ending. You leave the person in their final resting place. Rather than leaving them still in their final journey and then the ashes to deal with.

But I will be in an unmarked 'wild' grave. As I do not want it to be a burden.

I walk through a graveyard every time I go into town. I always look at the graves and I'd say 95% of them aren't visited (making a massive assumption due to not being kept tidy, no flowers etc). I believe your memories inside is what's the most important.

When dad died mum had his ashes interred with a stone and she took comfort visiting it on his birthday, Christmas, their anniversary etc so I took her to lay flowers. She bought a double plot and when she died she went in beside him.

But since mum has gone I have only been twice - once when mum was interred and once after the stone was engraved. Sometimes feel a little bit like she is being neglected but I don't feel the need to visit to remember her - the cemetery keeps the garden and stone maintained so I don't need to go. I think it is probably pretty common with the next generation not needing some place to visit parents who died when they were quite elderly as is the norm.

Not sure if it was dh if I would want a stone to visit, I haven't thought about it much and don't even want to consider it for dc as that is just too horrific to contemplate. I don't care about it for myself as I won't be here!

My wonderful DH is still in a cupboard in the playroom.
We have vague plans to revisit our favourite family holiday destination and scatter ashes there, and maybe some closer to home,
But he lives on in our daily conversations and in our lives.
Every night I roll over to his side of the bed and imagine all of his being.

I've got a family grave where my great grandad, grandad, and one uncle were buried. I had my dad's ashes interred there when he died 30 years ago, and my mum's ashes were buried next to him last year. The headstone and curb stones had run out of space for inscriptions when my mum died last year, so the stonemason added a large marble book to put an inscription on for my mum, with space for me in the future. I know I can remember my parents anywhere but It's very important to me to have the grave, where I can visit and focus my thoughts, particularly on birthdays, anniversaries etc.

My DC also hated the thought of him being lonely in a ‘plot’ somewhere

I would like a headstone, I would like my name to be recorded on it. It would last after the people who remember me are gone. Not sure why that would matter to me, but it does!

I want a death bench. Locally is littered with them. Quietly reminding everyone on warm, sunny days of their impending doom 😀

Oh, interesting thread OP. My mum got a gravestone for my dad, and she'll be added to it when she goes. She visits it regularly, but neither my sibling or I go though, for different reasons, but I've realised that when my mum goes, there won't be anyone to tend to it, the way my mum does. I'm a bit sad that will be the case, food for thought. I won't be expecting one for myself, I don't want dc to have that kind of guilt or obligation.

I like headstones as a memorial. My grandparents ashes were scattered in the crematorium garden (my "D"M's decision) and I would have liked to have a memorial for them.

My DH wanted to be cremated but failed to tell us what he wanted done with his ashes. I held on to them for a couple of years wondering where to put them. Then his mother died and we had a funeral where she was buried with late FIL, so at that time I decided to inter DH's ashes with his parents as it felt right. Their joint grave is in a beautiful village churchyard next to the house where they used to live for years and where DH grew up. It feels right that they are all there back in the village they loved. I don't go there much though - we take flowers on DH's birthday and a wreath at Christmas but that's it. But even though I don't go often I like to know the stone is there memorialising them as part of village history.

Personally I'd like a woodland burial with a little plaque and trees growing round me and birds and squirrels running about.

As an aside, does anyone know if you can find out information regarding where people are buried. My dad passed away earlier his year and his parents were buried in a cemetery in both west London but I'm not sure about where they may be in there.

my mother, sister and I all have a ring with our dads ashes in. The rest of the ashes are with my mom and will stay with her until she passes and we will scatter them together

@muchalover I was once sitting on one of those memorial benches in a park I didn't often go to, when I realised it was dedicated to someone I used to work with - I hadn't known she had died so it was a bit of a shock.

I’d prefer a tree to be planted rather than a grave for myself.
There has been a ho-ha about the state of a couple of our local churches graveyards this summer - the older graves have been left unmowed/rewilded which has upset some. I’d think, if you’ve been dead 200 years you’re probably not too concerned!

Im half Indian, so most the deaths I have experienced have had cremations as the norm. That said, all of my English side have also opted for cremations. I know both my parents will opt for the same.

DH and I recently had a close friend pass away very suddenly and theirs was the first burial I had been to, and it left me feeling uncomfortable. It prompted a conversation between us on how we would like our funerals to be and DH said he wasn’t bordered either way. During the discussion, I realised the root cause of my uncomfortable feeling around burial was that I don’t like the thought of a body lingering after death. If DH were gone, I hate the thought of what used to be ‘him’ still existing in a physical sense, locked away underground.

For me, the cremation feels more like a final ending

My dad's ashes are behind the armchair he sat in, it's a family joke that we can hear him shuffling if we are watching something he doesn't like.

My parents are buried with my grandparents and great grandad. My aunts and an uncle are behind them, and my cousin’s husband is next to them and my brother owns the plot behind my parents!

I don’t know if I’ll be able to go there in my dead entirety due to horrendous expense, but I may tell my kids to bury my ashes with my mum and dad. I’m in the US now and told them not to bury me here!

Slightly changed so it's not outing but my mums ashes are overlooking a beautiful view, at a place where I worked, she worked, my dad worked and so did my gran as a child. It's got such a strong family history despite us having moved a lot, it felt like the right place
Buried the ashes next to a tree that was planted there when my Nan was a child

@newnamenewmane https://www.findagrave.com/ and https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch
But it seems a bit hit and miss. I've found my great granddad but not my Mum (died 1990) If you know the area it's possible the council will know who to ask.

No regrets here.
All my relatives are buried with headstones.
Family plots here and in Ireland.

Single family members are in with their parents so they are not alone.
Its nice to visit them.

My sister died at 12 hours old. Parents had her buried in the local cemetery.
When mum died her ashes were scattered there and I planted a rose tree. Still no stone.
When dad died he was cremated. Some ashes under a rose tree in my garden. We scattered some in Cornwall. Left some with my mum. Most of his ashes went in the firebox of a steam train. He was a train nut. What's left is in a tea tin in my brothers kitchen cupboard waiting to go to hamburg to be scattered with my grandma. He's been there a while....

I think I'd prefer to he buried, given what happened to my poor Mother. Body taken to a central cremation hub, hundreds of miles away. Returned by post. Sitting in a box in a bedroom next to a filing cabinet. At my request a tiny portion sent to me '3 teaspoons worth'. Posted to me in a sandwich bag, got stuck in the post strike. I arranged a formal blessing & took them to where she wanted to be laid to rest where they're in a flower garden. No dignity.