Why do we visit graves?

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

Although sometimes I think visiting graves is a strange custom, I still do it. In fact, I recently visited the final resting place for my dear departed mother in Vermont, far away from my Utah home.

My parents descended from a long line of Catholics who left Ireland and settled in various parts of New England. Many sought to escape the Potato Famine and Great Hunger of the mid-1800s, which killed a million Irish and forced another million to emigrate.

Besides O’Brien, the family tree includes such wonderful Irish surnames such as Sullivan, Leonard, McCarthy, Duffy, Doyle, Flaherty, Fitzgerald, Kennedy, Hogan, Lynch, Murphy, Killary, Halvey, Carroll, Barrett, Barron, and Cahill. Several of them lived and died in Burlington, Vermont. 

Living meant baptism, confession, communion, confirmation, marriage, and Sunday Mass every week in Burlington’s lovely old stone Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The Cathedral, built in 1867, stood at the corner of St. Paul Street and Cherry Street until an arson fire destroyed it in 1972. 

Dying also meant a trip to the Cathedral, and then a final stop at St. Joseph cemetery. Because of this family tradition, we decided to bury my mother there too when she passed away in 2007, for she was born and grew up in Burlington.

St. Joseph cemetery has great character and great characters. Perched on a hill overlooking the city and Lake Champlain to its west, it is the oldest local Catholic boneyard, with interments starting in 1837, well before the Civil War. 

The cemetery is a quaint, spooky, and classic graveyard. Its narrow dirt roads cut crooked paths between ghostly stone gates, mossy obelisks, decaying headstones, and decrepit markers of various shapes and sizes, many of them taller than me. 

During one visit, the place terrorized our young children at first, but soon they were wandering around happily looking for family names on the tombstones. We found both my name and my son’s name on old markers. Finding your name on a gravestone is startling, to say the least.

On my return visit in the Summer of 2023, I found and cleaned my mother’s and grandmother’s joint stone marker. I’d last been there in 2016, so there was some overgrowth to cut away and some baked-on dirt to scrub off.

Afterwards, my wife Vicki and I spent an hour or so walking through the entire grounds, finding and photographing the tombs of my many relatives, including all four grandparents, many great grandparents, countless aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins many times removed.

As I walked around, I wondered: why do we do this? Why do we visit graves?

The question persisted and so I spent much of the return flight home writing down possible answers. My scribbled notes turned into a top ten list. Here it is:

First, bonds. A grave marks the place of our final bond, the last place of earthly connection, the last home for our loved one. As a result, we are drawn to it.

Second, a portal. There is no science on this point, but the grave may be a portal to our loved one’s changed state, a sort of spiritual or paranormal telephone. Stranger things have happened, so why not try to commune with the dead from such a place? 

Third, a monument. We all know the proverbial statue in the square honoring some great man or woman. Although most of us are too meagre to get such a statue, we all deserve a small stone somewhere. Every existence is great in someone’s eyes. 

Fourth, an imprint. People leave an imprint on places significant to them, and what is more significant than a final resting place? To feel the imprint is to feel the presence of our loved one again. 

Fifth, a culmination. This may be it, the last remains, especially if it turns out there is no life after death. The grave is the last place and the last day our loved one knew above ground. That makes it compelling and significant, worthy of a visit. On the other hand, if there is life after death, a grave is a good reminder of that happy fact.

Sixth, putting things in focus. At a grave a visitor can concentrate more readily, can see and feel the loved one more keenly, more poignantly, and with fewer distractions. It recharges those precious memories that might otherwise fade over time.

Seventh, giving care. Visiting a grave provides our only remaining opportunity to care for our loved one in a tangible way, for example by cleaning the stone and pulling away the weeds like I did for my mother. Those for whom we can care are never completely gone from us. 

Eighth, social norms. If I talk to my loved one at the grave, I will charm and endear, but if I do it at the mall or my office, I unnerve. 

Ninth, fulfillment. The grave is a void-filling spot that replenishes us and answers, at least in part, the longing for our lost loved one. 

Tenth, almost paradise. A graveside may be the closest we get to eternity while we are alive, our only possible glimpse of the perpetual light shining. There, we dare to hope that life everlasting is real.

There may be other good reasons too. Case in point, I love the spectacular views of downtown Salt Lake City from Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery. 

Young people go to graveyards for a scare, especially on the chilly moonlit nights before Halloween. 

Amateur historians love the research opportunities. The Salt Lake City cemetery holds the remains of numerous senators, members of congress, church presidents, and maybe even Butch Cassidy’s sidekick—the Sundance Kid.

Some people just like the peace and quiet of a graveyard, even if they do not know anyone resting their bones there now.

Do you go to cemeteries? Why?

It’s not just a pun for me to say…I am dying to find out.

*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.