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The cemeteries I am familiar with allow artificial flowers around holidays for a week before and a week after. Then they throw them away.
I think the rule is because of people like you wanting to keep the same flowers there for long periods of time. Artificial doesn't look good after awhile. The life of real flowers is about right for the same flowers at the same grave.
Besides holidays, they don't wait for the flowers to die/wilt. If say every Monday they're doing maintenance they're going to throw them out whether they're new or look bad. I know some cemeteries allow you to plant live flowers, but looks weird imo.
Anybody told they can only leave live flowers and if they leave artificial ones they'll be removed? They throw away the live flowers one they wilt so wouldn't artificial ones make more sense? You can leave them till you replace. No good reason for the no fake flower rule that I can understand. Is this the basic rule in all cemetarys or just the one I went to visit?
Well, sort of I guess. Except for the appearance of caring. It is real caring. There is a family there that loves the decedent but they just can't afford to keep buying and replacing flowers or making the trip to visit. Not everyone gets buried within driving distance of their relatives homes or business.
Guess I just like the idea of the grave having a decoration, a bit of love, a bit of home, a bit of character & personality instead of a bare marker looking like it could be anybody else's.
Invest in a pretty headstone or grave marker. Those last forever.
My brother-in-law planted a tomato plant for his mother at the grave. He would bring his salt shaker and sit and "talk" to his mother.
I hate the plastic flowers. I plan to be cremated.
Love this. This cemetary wouldn't allow that either - no planting or else I'd say planting a live thing would be a perfect compromise. Salt shaker - LOL. Great
Wish I could give you more than one reputation credit!
I personally don't think of a grave as 'that is where my deceased family member is' but instead a reminder of their life. I choose silk flowers, replacing as needed, in the marble vases attached, as a tribute to a life well lived; a reminder. Each of us has their own manner of grieving, family traditions, and choices to make for those that go before us and for ourselves.
I personally don't think of a grave as 'that is where my deceased family member is' but instead a reminder of their life. I choose silk flowers, replacing as needed, in the marble vases attached, as a tribute to a life well lived; a reminder. Each of us has their own manner of grieving, family traditions, and choices to make for those that go before us and for ourselves.
My sister and I adopted the Jewish tradition of leaving a pebble on the headstone as a symbol of our having been there, and that the person was in our thoughts.
One thing about leaving real flowers in a cemetery, we were told when my mother died 4 year ago, is people will walk around looking for real flowers to pick up and take home. Not that many people want to take the artificial, but some do.
Because people bring gawd-awful looking bunches of plastic flowers in colors not found in nature and it sits there, fading and getting wind-blown and tattered until someone finally takes pity on the poor deceased and removes the offensive lump of plastic from their grave.
I'm one of those "dead is dead" people, who don't feel moved to make weekly or monthly pilgrimages to a gravesite. My mother, on the other hand, likes to visit my dad's gravesite regularly, and switches out nice silk flowers every month or two, depending on the season, to keep them fresh-looking. I asked her "why not let's take real flowers"? To her, that was a dreadful waste of money: "They don't last!" Oh, well. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
This is one reason I'd rather be cremated and have my ashes scattered. I don't want to be a source of guilt 20 or 30 years after I'm gone. :-) If you want to remember me, do something nice for someone else.
I got a laugh on a tale about something like this. You know the Japanese (or Chinese) leave food at their "departed ones" grave for them to eat. One day, a mouthy older man, who was there to visit his wife's grave, walked over and asked the oriental man "When in the world do you expect them to come up and eat that food?" The little man, without looking up, replied "At the same time you expect yours to come up to smell the flowers."
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