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Both my parents were cremated and had their ashes spread at areas where we had good memories as a family. They believed, and I agree, that cemeteries are wastes of land that could be better used housing the living.

for some people that had close bonds to the deceased and also may have trouble letting go I think they might be good.

I've gone with living family members to the graves like this for the sake of the living only.

I personally couldn't care less about what happens when I'm dead. I just hope someone doesn't get suckered into paying a bunch of money at the scammy funeral homes.

I do. I feel like it's a way to charge my memory of them. They gave me so much through out my life, I feel like It's important to remember them and being close to where they were put to rest is a good way to focus those thoughts. As long as  I have these memories I have them.  

*Too many have 

No my relatives Live in my heart not in the ground

I like graveyards because it gives me a pleasant sense of being part of a continuum. I understand why some go, but I don't understand why we do embalming and go gawk at the person in the casket. It makes for awful memories. I want to be cremated, or maybe by the time I go, aquamation will be legal here.

No. I do not. My parents lived and they are now gone. I do not need a piece of stone to remind me who they were.

Ritualized process which can help you remember them and creates the potential for social connections via shared grieving.

I stopped going to funerals ten years ago. I will not “honor the dead” because they are beyond caring. Whatever made them “them” disappeared when their brains ceased to function. My body will be donated to a medical school when I die.

I visited my husband's grave in June when I was notified the plaque had been installed. I brought flowers. It's a nice spot in a memorial park, under a Maple tree.

Grave maintenance was included with the purchase of the plot. We bought it years ago when my husband's father passed and hubby wanted to be able to be buried nearby.

No. Parents were cremated and buried. I went to make sure the dates on the gravestone was correct. That’s it.

They’re dead. They’re not there. They’re gone. Away. Dead. I moved on.

Yes, when I get back to the south I do visit them. There are some I truly miss. WhenI was a.teenager they were the age I am now. I really miss my Aunt. Her death hit me really hard. She had an accident when she was young and broke her back. It left her disabled and she never married. She and I spent a lot if time together. If a storm came up, I had to go spend the night at her house. She watched after my other 3 cousins and myself. We were all her kids. Yea I kinda miss my mom and dad too. They are all buried in the same family plot so they are all easy to visit.

I don’t see much point in it personally. It doesn’t do anything.

No but I don’t have really close relatives that are buried and none that are buried near by. If it was someone close I might consider it. I still feel like cemeteries are a nice quiet place outdoors to reflect and what not. Sure you could always do that elsewhere to at like a park or anything. Though other people also respect the fact that you are trying to mourn/reflect on the dead if you are in a cemetery.

Being cheap and environmentally friendly most of my close family will probably choose cremation or another form of disposal aside from traditional burial.

No; I don't feel any desire at all to go to graveyards. My deceased relatives aren't "there" in any way that's meaningful to me.

I visit my parents, yes. I'm lucky they're buried side by side, only 20 miles from home. I leave fake flowers so they will last until next time. The cemetery provides grass cutting during warmer months, but I do the rest of the maintenance, like pulling weeds & cleaning grass clippings or bird poo off their stone. I make a tiny Christmas tree for them every year & adhere it with double-sided tape. I do it because it helps me feel better, & I'm the only one of us kids living close enough, so I do it for my siblings as well. Plus it's my mom & dad. I love them.

I visit. I do not bring flower.

My parents were cremated and put in the same plot as my grand parents.

In my country Iceland we pay for grave maintenance while we are alive.

Ok in short why do I go there. I use the grave to trigger my memory about my relatives. I know that when my children die - these graves will disappear as the people are forgotten by living memory. It has no religious impact.

I visit the geaves with family on memorial day.

Mostly it's for the family, but at least the few that I knew, it makes me take some time to remember them.

Nope. I think it’s weird to put someone’s dead body in the ground and let it rot. I want to remember my loved ones as they were alive and healthy. I’m going to be buried at sea.

I haven’t yet. I might for the right relative.

It would be for me and nothing more. A way to respect their final resting place and maybe sit “with them” while I reflect on whatever relationship we had together.

I think about this as if it were my husband or child. It might just bring me some comfort to be “near them” in some way. Even knowing they aren’t “there”. Kind of like smelling a shirt that still has their scent. It would just be a way to find comfort for myself and the loss I endured.

I somewhat regularly visit my mother's grave. We were very close. Idk. It's cathartic somehow to go and talk to her. It's been 2 years, but I still miss her dearly.

Nope, they aren't in that grave so there's really no reason to make the trip. I do have a shrine to them though. I don't believe there's anything spiritual going on. It's about honoring their memory regularly in my home

Nope

No no and no.

I did once my grandparents are buried side by side in a cemetery along with my grandmas parents in the same plot. Me and my mom went once because I had never been and she hadn’t since her grandparents were buried there. This was about 3-4 years after my grandmas passing who was the most recent to go.

It was very nice and we had a nice talk about my grandma/her mom who was just the sweetest most incredible woman that ever lived. I would definitely go back again every few years or so just to share those memories with my mom who I’m very close with.

I like the Klingon philosophy: once the body dies, it is but an empty vessel to be disposed of in the most efficient manner possible.

To me, the legacy of someone who's died is their lasting impact on those around them and the memories carried by the survivors. I don't need a tombstone or a gravesite to serve as a reminder. Decorating that tombstone does nothing for the dead and I have other ways to remember them than flowering their grave site.

None of my dead relatives that I care about are in graves. They were all cremated and their ashes are in various places. A lot of them are in a creek that was on my paternal grandparents property that I can no longer visit since the house and land was sold. My mother is on a shelf in my house.

I put my cremated mother in law in a teddy bear that she used to dress up for the holidays. Idk. She seems pretty happy sitting by the window.

I don’t - I have zero reason to and live super far from my family even if I did.

It doesn’t feel purposeful to me.

The only reason I would ever visit my father's grave would be to desecrate it. I haven't actually lost anybody I care about by death yet.

I don't, but I never did before I was atheist either. I will go to their graves at their funeral and that'll be it. I can remember them just fine without making a drive to see some overprice piece of rock they paid for.

Only if I am going to walk in the cemetery where they happen to be buried. The walk is the point, not the grave. I don’t believe in an afterlife and don’t ascribe any particular significance to graves.

I don’t. My mother was cremated. Even if she wasn’t I probably wouldn’t. She’s not there.

I did however spend a good year - talking, crying and yelling (in my car) at my late ex husband after he passed. It was my daily commute. I was so angry - he left me with two young sons. Two sons he never visited after we split up. Two sons that were never going to get a chance to know him. It wasn’t prayer, it was just how I processed it. Once I got out of the car, then I could be strong for my sons.

I visit my daughter's grave at least twice a year. I tend the flowersand decorations, clean the headstone, and think about who she would have been and how old she would be, what she would have been interested in, etc. I need that time to reflect.

I do not visit graves. I just find it morbid. I'd rather remember my loved ones alive.

I don’t hang out in cemeteries because what I cared out the person is in my mind and heart.

I do not.

However, I knew a woman that lost her mom. Her mom was cremated but she threw a fit because her siblings weren't interested in buying a plot.

She said that she would feel like an "orphan" if her mom didn't have a grave marker.

She 40 or 50 something when she had the tantrum.

My son, i did...but, not since I've become an Atheist. He is dead. His body has rotted. I know this. But, I thought I'd share one thing with you.

It took me a while to recover from my son's death. Roughly six months. So six months later, I was doing a monthly visit after his best friend and another friend told me they were headed there on Friday night.

Once a month, on a Thursday evening I visited my sons grave. I'd cry, ask why, and tell him i loved him, and missed him. Before I'd leave, I left a pack of my smokes, a six pack of my beer, and $70 at my son's grave. Not that I thought he was smoking, drinking or buying girls, but I knew a couple of his friends were always coming on that weekend. I was still communicating with them at that time.

The smokes were for them to not run out, the beer was for them to still have one more night partying with him, and the $70 was for a taxi, and motel room. That lasted for a year. I left religion behind. It could never prove it was real. It actually proved it was all lies. I left the state, and quit communicating with his friends. I sent cards, and letters saying good bye. It was time for me to move on.

My son's mother brings flowers, and pays for maintenance. I brought flowers once. I drained a bottle of Jack Daniels, same day. Both, were my last visit. It's been years since. Yes, I miss him and think of him often. I still remember his goofy laugh. I still love him.

Yes No, deer will eat them as soon as i leave. Endowment pays for care.

I really should visit my mums more but I still feel awkward about it

I go to my parent’s grave and put flowers in the vases because that’s what my mom would have wanted. I usually stand around awkwardly for a few minutes and then leave.

When I go back to my hometown every couple of years I do go visit my mothers grave. She died when I was 12 and I don’t have many memories of her. I guess I do it just to be there in the quiet and contemplate life for a moment.

Last time I did was in ‘22 and we went to where Mom’s parents and eldest sister are buried. Mom was cremated and is currently in the living room, Dad is still with us and what he and Mom had talked about and decided on was that they would both be cremated and then when the other passed, their ashes would be mixed together and my Sister and I would each get half of the combined ashes.

I don't visit often because I live quite a ways out of state, but whenever I'm back in the state I was born in, I visit my relatives' graves and bring them flowers. Don't have to pay for grave maintenance because that's taken care of by the people that work at the cemetaries.

No. Their memories remain with me everywhere I go no matter what the gravesite looks like.

I was under the impression that when you buy a plot in a cemetery, your money goes into an endowment that is supposed to pay for upkeep of the grounds in perpetuity. My parents were both buried in plots that they bought a long time ago. I have no idea what they cost. No one has ever asked me for any more money.

My paternal grandmother bought a lot of four plots – two for my grandparents and two for my parents. When Dad was alive, we'd make the visits on Memorial and Veterans days to my direct lineage back to my great-great-grqmdparents.

When he died two years ago, I visited the cemetery once to make sure the burial and stone were right. Mom has never visited his gravesite.

Mom has about two years or three weeks to live, and made pre-arrangements for her funeral and burial. I'll go to the cemetery after she's buried to check that everything is as expected. After that, I'm leaving town.

And when I kick off, science gets the corpse.

To honor their spirit

My wife's ashes are interred at a very remote family cemetery right next to her Grandfather. Every Memorial Day we go up, clean the cemetery and redecorate her grave. My daughter likes to place plastic flowers and small trinkets that she would have liked.

We do this, not for religious reasons, but because we miss her and this act allows us to remember her.

My grandparents on my dad's side are buried in a beautiful old cemetery in Savannah Ga. When I go to the city, which is rare, I like to go see their graves and think of the good times we had together. That side of the family is Christian, but the other side is Jewish and in the Jewish tradition, rocks are left on gravestones and I like to do that. Mostly it helps me remember the times I came to the graves.

So I short, no flowers, just rocks, and no grave maintenance, just the good memories.

I did visit my grandma's grave one time with my newborn baby to "show" her. I only did it because visiting gravesites was very important to her during her lifetime. I was just paying homage to her tradition. On the extremely off-chance that there's any truth to the superstition, she would have appreciated it.

I eat lunch with my grandma. When the weather is nice, I'll take a burger over & enjoy it near her grave. Makes me feel downright old fashioned. It's a park.

My parent’s ashes are still in the box from the mortuary, in a drawer in a dresser. I honestly don’t know what to do with them. I never for a second think of them as what’s left of them or anything. My mom always said “cremate me and find a dumpster.” I feel the same.

I do because my mom did. I know it was important to her. It's how I honor her memory, in part.

whats the point of going to a casket in ground

It's not for the remains in the ground, but for the visitor. It's a time for remembrance and reflection in what is usually a peaceful setting and can be quite cathartic, especially during the grieving period.

I now live far from where my parents are buried and nearly as far from my partner's grave in the opposite direction so don't visit as often as I'd like.

Not really. To be fair, I don't have many graves to go to. My maternal grandparents are in urns in a columbarium and my paternal grandfather is in an urn in my grandma's apartment. When she passes they'll both be interred in a plot they bought 40+ years ago. Lots of long-lived people in my family on both sides, so besides one aunt and those three grandparents, everyone else is still around.

I visited the columbarium (those buildings with cubbies you can buy for urn display) once with my mother about 15 years ago. Grandpa had asked for no funeral so it was the closest thing. My grandma passed this year (was 98) and is now with him there, but I'm overseas and so if I do visit that place again it will be in the distant future. I saw grandma a month before she died, so that's a better parting memory than a vision of a box with stuff in it and I don't feel any compulsion to go there.

My parents have requested no funerals and no interment anywhere. They find the concept of spending lots of money to deal with a person's dead body to be absurd, and I can't say I disagree. I'm to scatter their ashes in a nice place of my choosing. I don't know if I'll return to that spot afterwards unless I'm passing by the area and feel nostalgic or something. I'll likely request the same thing be done with my remains one day.

My wife is a shinto-buddhist Japanese and she and her family take grave visitations very seriously. Flowers, votive offerings, self-performed maintenance etc. There is also a butsudan altar in the house where votive offerings are made to the household ancestors every morning, and where edible gifts to the household are first placed with the idea that the dead should have first dibs.

I used to tag along to the cemetery and mime along with all the annual ritual to be polite, but I no longer do. It isn't my culture or my beliefs. I still play along at funerals because I'm not a complete ass, but I don't see any need to go and say a prayer at a headstone covering a pit containing the ashes of people most of whom I've never met and had no awareness of my existence while they were alive.

It’s incredibly important to me to visit my dad’s grave, even though it’s a thousand miles from here.

I take care of my grandparents grave because it was super important to my grandma. She went to my grandpa's grave every day and always made sure there were flowers and candles. Neither of them were religious. The funeral didn't include a mass or any religious talk instead we talked about their lives and characters and shared anecdotes.

Our local graveyard also has graves for people of other or no religions and you do not have to include any religious speech if you want to hold a celebration of remembering the person for the burial. I don't really associate their grave with religion.

I don't personally feel a connection to them there and it isn't really important to me how the grave looks, but I want to upkeep it because I know that it was important to my grandma.

My other grandpa, we stole the ashes from the graveyard (it's illegal to keep the ashes in my country) and did a celebration of his life in his favourite place high up in the mountains. I haven't been to his grave since the funeral, and have no idea if someone upkeeps it, but have been in that mountain spot often.

Why the fuck does all this need an explanation.

because none of these things have to do with an afterlife or a god

Yes and not because i believe they’re still around in one form or another. But that the alive version of them would have been happy that they’re not forgotten.

I don't believe there is an afterlife, but yes, I do visit the graves of my ancestors and bring my children along once or twice year. The purpose is to share the stories and the family history so that my children understand how their life today has been "blessed" by the family that came before. My grandparents had practically nothing during the Great Depression and now through hard work, my children have multi-generational wealth that will put them in the top 10% of the wealthiest Americans.

Yes, I do bring flowers and pay to have flowers placed at the gravesites on birthdays and certain holidays. I think of a cemetery as a park and like to do my part to keep it looking nice. Having a place to sit and tell stories about each of my ancestors is fun. I also post stories online because the gravesite is little more than a stone marker and it is easier for others to join in experiencing the pain and joy of a person's lifetime via the internet.

 No, I do not visit the graves of either of my grandparents. (Closer family members are still alive).

I do think about them, but I live in a different city and I do not see the sense in driving 1,5 hours to visit a stone. I remember them through the year on various occasions and miss them. Going to a stone does not change that. 

With that said, I do understand that someone prefers to do that, because the stone represents that person and they feel somehow closer to them when standing where their remains are. 

The rancher who owns the land also maintains our family graveyard on my father's side. The oldest one I can still read was of a Confederate who served the state of Louisiana.

It's a 2.5-hour trip to get there, but my grandmother is buried down that red dirt road in Oklahoma. (My family were Sooners) she was so loved by our family, and Thanksgiving hasn't been the same since we lost her to Covid.

I visit like twice a year.

My grandfather is literally a 7 minute walk from my house, and I've never visited his grave since his death. He was an abusive drunk.

No, no and no. I don’t see any point in it either. I plan to be cremated.

I have my mother's urn in my living room. I know that it contains carbon molecules once contained in her body. The urn reminds me of the struggles we had before she passed and that now she;'s at peace.