Do people still bother with flowers and wreaths on graves?

[Thefaceofboe]

Just that really.

Just visited my grandma and grandads joint grave who have been gone 9 years and 12 years. They were a huge part of Christmas and are hugely missed by all the family. They had 9 children and 22 grand children.

Just been to put some flowers and a wreath on their grave (slightly late but I’m 300 miles away but always visit when I’m at my mum and dads) and there wasn’t a thing on there, expect the dying flowers I put there last time I visited. They were the only ones that I could see in that area with not one thing on their graves and it made me really sad . This is a regular thing and in the 9 years my grandma has been gone I’ve only ever seen flowers from someone other than me and my mum, twice. AIBU to expect people to bother?

It isn't something I would ever do but I wouldn't object to other people doing it if they wanted to.
I remember my family members by telling stories of their life to my dc.
There isn't one correct way to remember but I don't think flower laying is a particularly current way of recalling loved ones for many people.
Traditions around death change through time.

My Nan was firmly of the belief that she wouldn’t be there (in the cemetery) and we shouldn’t feel obligated to go or take flowers. We remember her in many ways, but rarely visit the grave.

We don’t because my grandma and grandad lived and are buried over 100 miles away, so the journey is too far. I guess that’s the case for a lot of people nowadays.

I have a graveyard at the the end of my road and noticed that there were loads of fresh flowers today even on some of the very old graves.

Personally I find seeing very dead flowers on a grave much more disrespectful than an empty grave.

Between us one of us takes flowers to my Nan and Grandads grave every few weeks, if we know we won’t be able to get any there for a few weeks we leave it empty. My other grandparents have a plant put on at special times of the year so it lasts longer between visits

I lived with my Gran as a child so was very close to her. She was 79 when she died and I have never felt the need to go to her grave

My Firtsborn is burried in a childrens plot and the graves are always very well tended

My family in the UK place flowers on all of the family graves regularly.

And my granny who died when she was 83 was still placing flowers on the graves of her parents and my grandads parents right up until she died.

I also visit the graves when I’m in the UK. And I also visit other people’s.

It depends
People, like you, who live far away and only visit occasionally tend to take flowers
Those who live nearby who can visit regularly often dont bother. That still applies even if they don't actually go any more regularly than you do
It's more of a formal event for you

I always put a Christmas wreath on my dad's grave for my mum. Also on his birthday. Have good intentions to do more but that doesn't always happen.

Yabvvu to judge.

I dont visit my family graves as I'm the last one left and I cant face it. People deal with grief in different ways.

Just come back from visiting my gran and grandad's grave,to pay my respects and check on their grave.
Many graves had fresh flowers or wreaths on them. For me,I prefer to buy flowers and put them in ''gran's vase'' at home.

Are you BU to expect people to bother? Well yes you are. It's not about bothering, it's about different ways of remembering people who have died.

I've never visited a loved one's grave, but they are still precious to me.

Sorry but you need to stop judging. Other people don’t do flowers for graves. Or grave visiting.

I don’t visit my mother’s grave (it’s been 30 years) and I certainly wouldn’t take flowers. I find the whole concept weird - cutting down something living to decorate a stone for the dead. Maybe others in your family are like me. or perhaps they choose to express themselves in some other way.

If you want regular and fresh flowers, I’m afraid you need to organise and pay for them all. You’ll need to arrange for a local to change them out.

My grandmother and great grandmother are buried and grandad struggles now putting the flowers down and tidying without help. He insisted on going while we were all as work and had a fall last week in the cemetery.

I'm getting cremated and the ashes split into 3 urns so all DC get one each.

I also keep telling them to have my tattoos of their names removed and framed for them to keep above their fireplaces. (as a joke)

I go and put cards on when it's the persons birthday & at Christmas.

We do.

I've never visited a grave in my life. My husband's parents were cremated, as mine will be when they pass. All their parents were cremated, and their parents before them. I honestly don't know when our last ancestor was buried, it was such a long time ago.

Different people remember in different ways. In our family, we prefer to have a toast to departed relatives in the evening on Christmas Eve.

Since I can't give my dad a present any more I make him a wreath. Our village graveyard has lots of flowers all year around and my dad's grave has flowers all year round between my mum and myself. I grew up watching my mum make wreaths and it was part of the Christmas prep in our house. However my mum always tells me she'd rather have flowers when she's alive not when she's dead so I buy her them every pay week and probably won't put them on her grave when the time comes.

My family are all buried abroad so can only realistically get over there once a year. I usually buy flower plants rather than cut flowers for that reason- they last longer that way. Other family members go more regularly and have put artificial flowers on for when they cant get there

People feel very differently about this, OP. My mother is a hardcore grave tender, and does a circuit of about forty miles calling to different graveyards where family members are buried seasonally, weeding, planting etc.

When a close friend of hers died young back in the 1990s, the friend's widower simply left the grave with the temporary wooden marker supplied by the cemetery for a couple of years rather than putting up a headstone, which my mother was terribly upset by, because, to her mind, that looked like neglect and lack of love. She could barely look at it.

I had to point out on a number of occasions that it was perfectly possible the poor man was too heartbroken to bustle about arranging for headstones and inscriptions the second the grave had settled.

It's very personal. I haven't been to my child's grave in 6 months. I can't bear it. I want so much to drive up and find it's not there, I dreamed it, the horror of this isn't real. I have a friend whose son died nearly 23 years ago and she cannot visit his grave. Our husbands go. They make sure it's clean and nothing's broken. But some people are so heartbroken they can't face it. Or they've moved. For me, it will be my own grave one day, too. I get to see my own end there, too. It's utterly soul-destroying.

YABVU. I have never ever put flowers where my mum’s ashes are buried and I have no intention ever of doing so. I don’t need to go to a graveyard to remember her. I have thought of her every day for the last 17 years. She’s not in that place. She’s in my heart and my memories. If you need to put flowers on a slab of concrete (because for me that’s all a gravestone is) to pay respects or remember your loved ones, crack on, but don’t judge others who grieve and commemorate in a different way.

Do you know for sure that the others aren't visiting?

I take flowers to mil 's grave a few times a year. We don't live close so I don't get there as often as I should.

She doesn't have many flowers on her grave but she does have visitors who go to the grave regularly, they just don't bring flowers. The important thing is that they go there, not if they bring anything with them.

Yes many people like to tend the grave, but many others believe once the spirit is gone from the body then the person they remember is gone to wherever they believe that life force to have come from, whether that is heaven or back into the universe in some way. So to those people the grave may have little significance.

I don’t. Mum died 12 yrs ago and my nan 8. I don’t do it. Wind and rain ruin them so i fo it only in the summer,

I think of mum every day and I don’t feel I have to put something there to show others I’m thinking of her,