I mean no disrespect but I think headstones are a custom, not a requirement.
They remind me of Christmas presents. Optional and not the point.
I think any such decision about how to honor someone's life and commemorate their death is completely personal, and if we (culture "we") weren't intimidated by tradition, we'd feel the freedom to do what feels right.
I certainly don't care about a stone. I've reserved a little bitty plaque space in the church's memorial garden for myself, and got one for my D's father, which we dedicated a year after his death. No big fuss. In case it does comfort her one day after I'm gone too, she could sit in a space where in a sense, both of us are.
Personally, I have absolutely diabolical plans for my ashes (they involve sending tablespoons in little bags to so many people, with an individualized comical thing to do with them). I do not feel reverence for dead bodies. Nobody's home. I loved my dad as much as anyone in my life and letting go of his body was not too hard, probably because I chose to stay with it a full day until it began to show some of the physical breakdown that is natural. That was nature's sign to me, you can let go of this now...he is not here.
I never visit the columbarium where his ashes are. I guess it's because I think he's here, in his old shirt I kept, in his chair I sit in. He didn't hang out at the University cemetery so it seems odd to think of "visiting" him.
I remember my D said about her father, in the church garden, "I don't know where he is." And we 3 witnesses (me, her stepmother-his widow, and the minister) said practically in unison, "He's in you."
So these people, loved and missed, are commemorated when we remember and learn and are mindful. But not by our leaping on a pyre.
No guilt about erecting monuments, small or large, please....do what you want when you want, your own rituals. Or traditional things if they feel right to you ... nothing wrong with that and many times it is very beautiful. But please, don't send GUILT toward the dead or toward their surviviors.
Whatever wisdom and light and beauty can come from any afterlife would not include that! If you believe they've moved on to a cosmic sphere, then just imagine the love coming from them to you. (If it was a monstrous person who died, then imagine if they had a scrap of goodness, that is all that they are now.)
I do. At times, when I'm lost, I feel grounded by a little chat with my Dad. If I hadn't had even one loving parent, I'd have found someone else to chat with. Jesus. MLKJr, a hero of mine. A kindly former neighbor.
love,
Hops
