Cemetery Stroll

After all the rather smug emails I’ve sent home to New England, buried under snow, it has turned cold and cloudy here. Yesterday we kept warm with a roaring fire in the fireplace. We had just gotten around to getting some wood.
This morning we decided a brisk walk would be a good way to warm up. We walked through a cemetery, just up the hill from us. It is not at all like cemeteries in the US. The graves are partially raised on marble or concrete. Most have a large vase of artificial flowers and a marble “book” inscribed with the name and dates of the individual buried there. Many also have photos.

One section of the cemetery is lined with small “houses” each containing the remains of a family. Looking through a little window we can see caskets on either side, like bunk beds. The caskets are not as deep as the ones we see in the US. They are covered with ornate cloths, some lace, others fringed. In some there was a chair between the two tiers of caskets.

Another section of the cemetery holds a long wall of stacked glass doors, behind each a space just large enough for a single casket, again covered by a cloth.

The separate family tombs reminded me of the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. It contains a whole village of family tombs.

I’ve been fascinated with cemeteries since childhood. Perhaps it is the result of being the granddaughter of a funeral director but Smith Hill Cemetery, in Otisville, Michigan was a place I visited often growing up. Generations of my family were buried there and visiting the graves from time to time was expected. In addition, my father sometimes helped to dig graves and my grandfather was the overseer. In my travels around the world, I’ve discovered incredibly diverse ways to honor the dead. In Thailand, Vietnam, France, Belgium, Kenya, and Romania all have been different and meaningful in that culture.