Leaving things on gravesites

[CocoCamm]

Everyone is being so scornful of the mistress but no one has mentioned the fathers role in all of this. If anyone should have concern for his family it should be him and having an affair doesnt fit the role of a man thats concerned about his families feelings.

I do agree that leaving flowers on the grave of your married lover isnt the classiest thing to do but it takes 2 to tango and the father is just as resonsible for the mothers hurt feelings-even more so because HE was the one that promised to love HONOR and cherish her, his mistress has no responsibility towards his family.

[Evil Duckie]

I am sorry about your dad.

Leaving flowers on your married lover's grave is not in the best taste.

As to how the red roses got there. It could have been an old mistress. I think that it is more likely a florist putting the flowers on the wrong grave, someone saw some flowers that had flown off and put them on the grave not knowing if they belonged there, someone moved them off another grave, or a friend of the family put them there I know several people who would put red roses on a grave because that is the main flower they know of.

I would not have told your mom that someone dropped them and then remove them. It would have better to tell her- you have no idea, but it was nice that someone was thinking of your dad.

[MadMadge43]

Oops are you sure it wasn't me?

I often walk through and explore cemeteries. If I see flowers or whatnot that have blown away into the pathway or off a grave I will usually place them on a nearby grave. Maybe I should stop doing that.

Bless your heart. I would have done the same exact thing until this happened. You never know what you old wounds you could unmeaningly be opening .

And yes, it wasn't nice that my father had an affair or two, but as I mentioned, I thought they BOTH were having affairs. A 36 year marriage has many ups and downs and even though the worst happened, they worked through it and managed to love each other through it all. They actually taught me that marriage is not perfect, but that doesn't mean you give up on it. And they really did love each other dispite certain imperfections.

[IndianInlaw]

My mother's aunt (the one I talk about all the time) had a not so common name.  It catches me off guard when I go to the cemetery and see her name on this one headstone.   She's buried elsewhere in the cemetery.  This headstone belongs to someone with the same name.

I have to stop and think though.

Florists deliver flowers to cemeteries all the time.  Could it be they had been intended for someone else?

Too many variables here.

[MadMadge43]

Indian In Law-

It very well could have, I mean there are a thousand things that it could be besides his mistress; careless florist, happless caretaker, stray dog, misguided goth.

For years after this though, when I drove by the cemetary and if anyone was in the area where he's burried, I'd make a casual sweep through to see if they were actually at his grave (you can see the entire cemetary from two major streets there). I am proud to say I didn't even look last time I was in town.

It's probably one of those questions that I will never know (by the way, did I mention they were cheap red roses)

[Tabris]

I have found things on my daughter's gravestone that I didn't place there, but because I visited frequently at first, I was able to identify where they did belong in the baby yard. The grounds crew has mentioned to me that they don't always remember where things are supposed to go if the wind blows them off (always? was my response--you mean, you actually pay attention to which baby has a teddy bear and which one has a little row of matchbox cars?)

MadMadge, I've found "strange" flowers on my daughter's grave, and I'm relatively sure she wasn't having an affair. 

BTW, there's nothing weird or bad about tending a grave. It's a method of grieving for some people. When it comes to cemeteries, there are "goers" and there are "nongoers," and BOTH STRATEGIES ARE GOOD. Some people derive comfort from planting and watering flowers, leaving grave goods, sitting in silence, or just drinking their coffee there. Other people bury their dead and never look back, and that's comforting for them. It's just a question of what's healthiest for the individual. When Emily first died, I went four times a week for a couple of minutes each time. Nowadays, I go about four times a year to change the silk flowers and make sure everything is okay or to sing Happy Birthday to her on the appropriate day. But either extreme and all the territory in the middle is quite healthy and helpful to the bereaved.

[ettacat]

Everyone is being so scornful of the mistress but no one has mentioned the fathers role in all of this. If anyone should have concern for his family it should be him and having an affair doesnt fit the role of a man thats concerned about his families feelings.

I do agree that leaving flowers on the grave of your married lover isnt the classiest thing to do but it takes 2 to tango and the father is just as resonsible for the mothers hurt feelings-even more so because HE was the one that promised to love HONOR and cherish her, his mistress has no responsibility towards his family.

I don't think that anyone would say the man is a saint who is innocent of everything. But, I have to respectfully disagree with you about a mistress and her "responsibility". Maybe legally, no, she has no responsibility to the family of her married lover. However, morally, she has the responsibility to not be with a married man in the first place.

As the child of a parent who strayed, I speak from experience when I tell you that it is devastating. I have forgiven my parent but if my parent were to die and the former lover showed up, I would boot them out of the funeral home and tell them to get lost.

[MelJill]

Everyone is being so scornful of the mistress but no one has mentioned the fathers role in all of this. If anyone should have concern for his family it should be him and having an affair doesnt fit the role of a man thats concerned about his families feelings.

I do agree that leaving flowers on the grave of your married lover isnt the classiest thing to do but it takes 2 to tango and the father is just as resonsible for the mothers hurt feelings-even more so because HE was the one that promised to love HONOR and cherish her, his mistress has no responsibility towards his family.

Well, I think the father is given a pass here because as a dead man, he can't control who leaves things on his gravestone.  Doesn't mean that he's not at least as guilty (if not more, since he's the one who made the vows) ... just that there's no expectations from him now.

But I would probably continue to operate under the assumption that it was an error/some cemetery walker putting blown-off flowers on the nearest stone/some other benign thing.  Unless it becomes more painfully obvious (showing up on some predictable dates other than major holidays like Memorial Day) ... but if I were the daughter, I'd then definitely make sure that my mother didn't know they were there or find a way to make it seem like it belonged to the next stone over (assuming that's a non-related person).

[ZipTheWonder]

Everyone is being so scornful of the mistress but no one has mentioned the fathers role in all of this.

I'm pretty sure he didn't leave the flowers. 

But, I think what you're actually asking is answered in the fact that, in many cultures, there are conventions against speaking ill of the dead.

[Adah]

General comment: The debate over who is more guilty of the affair, the man or the woman, seems like a mute point. It takes two, as the saying goes, and each is equally irresponsible for various reasons. On the whole, one is not more irresponsible than the other.

To the OP: I'm very sorry about your loss. We lost our close neighbor suddenly last year. Christmas was "his" time of the year, with his house completely decked out for the holidays. I was thinking about John right before Christmas and drove by his grave. His wife had decorated it with Christmas ornaments and even a Grinch Santa cap (he was affectionally known as The Grinch). It made me both smile and tear up. 

[CreteGirl]

oh gosh, this just reminded me of a horrible story.  When I went back to my old hometown to visit, my friend and I were visiting a nearby graveyard, and my son was with us.  We were looking at graves of people we knew from our small town.  Unbeknown to me, my son thought he would be funny, and spell out "help me" in twigs on top of one of the graves that we had visited.  We have a sick sense of humor at my house, so he thought something like that would be funny. 

Luckily, we passed that grave again on our way out, and I noticed what he had done and immediately removed the sticks and twigs.  Had we not removed them, it would have been particularly horrible, because the girl buried there had been bludgeoned to death with a stick in the forest!

Anyone who saw what he had done would have thought someone was playing a cruel joke.  He really had no idea.

[Ciarrai]

Had we not removed them, it would have been particularly horrible, because the girl buried there had been bludgeoned to death with a stick in the forest!

Oh that's horrible. The poor girl.

[Amitisoo]

Well this misguided goth (that made me laugh) will now be placing wayward plastic flowers by a tree, bench, statue or front gate instead of a random grave.

When I lived in western Canada there was mostly fresh flowers on graves but here in the East almost all have these "saddles" covered in plastic flowers. I find it weird.

[Gyro Widget]

It could have been a friend that left them.  However, I think its polite to ask the family members first (or at least the member that is the "care taker" of the grave, there always seems to be one). 

My mother has the same sort of problem on my grandmothers grave.  Except it is more of a tackyness issue.  Her, my aunt, and I keep the grave tidy with real flowers planted.  There is a lovely angel statuette in the middle.  Since we are allowed to have real flowers in the ground with this cemetary, we spend a lot of time and effort, so much that it is a picture perfect garden over my grandma's resting place. 

My grandmother was a considerate, gentle woman, but she did not care much for plastic flowers.  However we have a stray relative that comes once a year or so to place plastic flowers and figurines on the grave.  I know that it seems petty, and that we should be grateful for anybody who wishes to reflect on such a wonderful woman, but it irks those that were closest to her that they would just put whatever they want on a well manicured site without asking.  The energy my mother puts into the grave is her closure, and perfecting it makes her feel closer to her mother.  It just breaks my heart to see her silently fuming whenever we visit grandma to find another faded plastic rose with fallen plastic petals littering the graveyard.  Its not so much that she detests plastic flowers, but the people who leave them rarely return, leaving them to blow around and fade.   

So my rule of thumb is: Ask the close relatives first what is appropriate - they are upkeeping the site afterall.