Is it unreasonable not to visit a grave?

[immortalmarble]

By an unfortunate coincidence my mother died twenty years ago tomorrow (mother’s day) when I was 17.

I have never liked going to my parents’ grave. I recognise some people find it comforting or peaceful but I don’t. It doesn’t upset me but I just feel very flat and unmoved.

To be honest, I do not want to go and would be quite happy if I never went again. But I worry my parents’ friends think I am cold, heartless, whatever.

Be honest - like I say it does not bother me!

Until DH died last year I'd not really lost anyone close to me sincee my grandparents in childhood and early adulthood.
I've never in my life visited a grave, tbh I don't even know if my grandparents have memorials - I know my grandma's ashes were scattered over the Menai Straight.
I haven't got a memorial for DH, I asked his mum and children if they wanted some of his ashes and they were split 4 ways. I've done nothing with mine and don't intent to have a memorial.

It is your memories, your mum and your grief, you do what you feel comfortable with - you don't need to do anything to conform to what you feel other people think you should be doing.

I think you should do what feels right for you. It's your grief and you should deal with that without having to worry about what others think.

I have rarely been to my brothers grave since he died 3 years ago. I go at Christmas and his birthday but more because I feel like I have to. My mum hates that I don't go but I don't feel like I have too and I actually find it harder to do so.

I live right next to the graveyard where my DF is buried (and other family members too). I pretty much never go there. My mum visits much more often but she doesn't seem concerned that I don't - she understands that different people have different ways of remembering people. I hope your parents' friends understand that too.

I think it’s generational to an extent, and cultural, too. In my home country, cremation is still fairly unusual, and burial in family plots and visiting graves quite often is the norm for my parents’ generation. My mother and father visit all family graves in a distant rural area to where they now live several times a year, and plant and tend flowers on them, tidy them up etc, and go much more often to closer family graves. My mother was terribly upset when the widower of a friend of hers who died young did not put up a ‘proper’ headstone on her grave for over two years after her death, and had to be told that this was not ‘neglect’, or indifference but a different way of manifesting grief.

It's okay to mourn in your own way and also okay not to mourn at all.

I lost my Dad twenty years ago too. I don't go to his grave, it doesn't mean I don't love him and miss him still.

But I worry my parents’ friends think I am cold, heartless, whatever.

The only thing wrong here, is that you even consider what your parent's friends think, and possibly even allow it to modify your behaviour. The glorious part of being an adult, for me, is exactly having the power, and responsibility, for how you lead your life.

This is not a charter for being irresponsible and doing selfish things, it is a charter for considering your own behaviour and doing what you think is right, then owning that choice, being straight about it and not pretending to do anything else.

Mourn your parents in your own way, the way that feels right for you. In this way, you will build your self esteem. Don't do something like visit a grave only because it looks good to someone else. That will undermine your self esteem. Try it and see...all the very best.

Neither side of my family does grave visiting. It isn't because we don't care or anything like that, it's just that we like to remember our dead relatives in other ways.

I loved my granny dearly and feel very sad that she wasn't in my life for longer. Going to the spot where her ashes were scattered does nothing for me, but sitting on the organ bench in the church where she was organist for years does.

Mum and I talk loads about the sort of things she liked, and what she'd think of things as they are now. Mum also has a collection of letters she wrote to her family when she was in the RAF; reading them together makes me feel really close to her. The letters are really funny and it's almost like she's there telling us herself.

I rarely go to my DM's grave, mostly because I do not now live in the same town, but when I did, I didn't go because it upsets me very much. I think about her every day and some days I miss her so much, even though it has been 19 years. I had DF cremated and his ashes were scattered by the crematorium people in their garden of remembrance. I never go there, either. I have told my DC to cremate me. I don't want them standing around an open grave, weeping.

My parents died within a few years of each other about 10 years ago. After my dad died I would go with my mum to tidy it up and put flowers etc. She bought a double plot and always said to me not to feel like I had to go and visit when they were both there, that it wasn't a nice place to be and she'd rather not imagine me hanging around weeding a plot with my kids in tow.

She felt my dad's presence at home, not at the graveyard and the same is true for me, I never felt anything knowing that his bones were there right next to me, it was his 'spirit' and legacy in the house where we grew up, furniture he'd sat on, pictures he'd bought, it was looking at photos or listening to music he liked that reminded me of him.

As it happens I haven't been to the cemetery for a long time, although I do feel I should at some point - I did occasionally go up with a pot plant etc during the first year or two, but my mum had also ordered a marble slab across the whole plot so that we didn't have to weed it or change gravel etc.

She made it as low maintenance as possible because she didn't want me to feel obliged to spend mother's day up there in the cold rather than at home with my own DCs.

I wouldn't worry. My grandma was my closest friend and I feel nothing when I visit her grave. In contrast, when I go into my oldest son's bedroom which was always the nursery for all three dc, I always think of her and feel close to her. I'm not a bit woo and she never even set foot in that bedroom so I can't explain it but it's her 'place' for me iyswim.

Can only echo PP. I don't feel the need to go and visit my mother's grave very often - I do go once a year on the anniversary just to give her a clean and polish, but that's more to do with Jewish tradition around yahrzeit (the anniversary of a loved one's death), because her faith was important to her (although I was raised Jewish I'm an atheist by belief).

I don't go and weep there, to me she isn't there. On the day of the funeral, my brother said to me 'it's just a box'. I kept saying that to myself - that's not my mum, it's just a box.

If I want to have a chat to her, I can do that any time in my head. She lives on in my heart. There is no right or wrong - and it's no one else's business how you choose to mourn (or indeed if you mourn at all)

I’ve been to my parents grave only a handful of times since my mum died ten years ago. I don’t live locally (300 miles away) and I know my mum would tell me off for spending £100+ on petrol just to look at it. So on significant days I buy a bunch of flowers that I can look at in my home for a few days, rather than put on a grave and leave to either with nobody to see them open up.

Wither.. not either

I think graves are really sad.

I wouldn't worry about what other people think, this is entirely up to you.

My mum died 20 years ago (I was just 18)and I haven't ever been to her grave(since her funeral ). I just don't want to. I know it's tended because some of her old friends from church do it. My dad used to go very, very regularly but I don't think he does anymore.

I think it's fine. I think I've only visited my mums grave a couple of times. It's in my home town, which is a good hour from where we live, and like you op, I just feel quite unmoved by being there. I think of mum often and will often talk out loud to her (not sure what I believe in but it's comforting sometimes), but I never really know what to do at the grave yard. I wouldn't feel bad at all, everyone feels differently about these things and it doesn't diminish the love you have for your mum x

Not unreasonable at all. In the 15 years since my brother died I’ve visited his grave only a couple of times. I don’t feel any sort of peace in a cemetery - in fact I had many nightmares in the months after he died about him being there.

I remember him in my own ways.

I always visit the crematorium on the anniversary of my mums death, but that's the only day. When she was a little girl her grandmother used to take her every Sunday to the grave of her grandfather. She took a packed lunch and sat on the bench nearby for a couple of hours. I remember my mum saying how bored she was and what an awful thing to do to a child. 🙁

In my family culture, we scatter ashes or have simple interments. We don't visit graves. In my DPs family the Irish Catholic and Indian side do a lot . Its never been an issue, we just do things differently

My DF died more than 20 years ago and I have been to his grave only once. I hate it - doesn't make me feel close to him, it's just a depressing granite slab.

Graveside visits are definitely for the living: don't do it unless it helps you.

My parents' ashes are buried in a churchyard amongst pine trees so the church does what little maintenance is needed. I haven't been back since I sold their house as I live a few hours away but I used to go regularly after Mum's death though Dad never went. It was the only opportunity I had to mourn as Dad would turn any upset of mine round to how he was the most mourning etc, as though I hadn't just lost my mother; I did all my crying there. I do arrange for the village florist to take flowers up on significant occasions. I've always found graveyards, particularly older ones to be meditative but I'd hate to be forced up there as my father was to visit his father's grave every Sunday. When my time comes, I'll be quite happy to be composted in our village cemetery where dogs are walked through and children play.