Life
The rules governing the aesthetics of her daughter’s gravesite inspire the author to a small but meaningful act of defiance. By Cass Moriarty.
Grief and gratitude: The power of personal tributes
My son-in-law calls from the cemetery.
It’s all gone. They’ve cleared everything out.
I know what he is talking about without hearing the words. Tears prickle the inside of my eyelids.
We buried my daughter only 10 months ago, and the site is now finally carpeted with grass. Everything? This is a desecration.
Perhaps it was because of the cyclone? I ask, knowing that residents were asked to tie down all objects that might fly about in the predicted high winds.
But why didn’t they send an email? Ask us to collect anything precious?
He is upset too, and I end the call with more calm than I feel, not wanting to distress him further.
I am shocked, but I know it is not because of the cyclone, now been and gone. I google the Memorial Garden’s “Rules and Regulations”.
“At [-------] we strive to maintain high standards of beauty, peace and tranquillity. The following Rules and Regulations (the ‘Rules’) are designed to support this objective as well as seeking to protect the safety of all those that visit and work in our park grounds.
“1. Prohibited items
We may refuse, rectify or remove any ornamentation or changes to a Memorial or Site. For example, we will not allow and will remove items such as artificial flowers, statues, permanent wreaths or floral sprays, boxes, shells and toys and anything that we consider detracts from the beauty of the Facilities or is a safety hazard, or is in conflict with these Rules.”
This is not a surprise to me. The cemetery has signs that state only fresh flowers should be left on gravesites. Until now, though, I have seen no evidence of this Rule being upheld. Until now, the graves and headstones have been memorable and distinct, not only because of the words on their plaques but because of the myriad chosen objects that firmly establish a feeling of joie de vivre, or longing, or eternal remembrance or familiarity. Everything from pinwheels to beer cans, from stuffed animals to photos, from solar lights to crystals.
My husband is incensed. He pictures some guy with a bobcat chucking everything in a bin.
We have tended our daughter’s grave with a careful curation of personalised objects that hold special meaning or represent her. Of course, we sometimes bring fresh flowers – bright, colourful and perfumed, they signify life and vitality. But they are a temporary beauty. After only a few days, they wilt. By the next visit, they are ugly, dead, rotting things that we swiftly remove.
Despite disliking fake flowers, I have resorted to buying armfuls of natives in my daughter’s favourite pastel colours, the sunflowers she adores, the eucalypt leaves she hung, steaming, in her shower. They’re only plastic replications, but they have graced the space with lifelike colour and a sense of her.
We have turned to these permanent markers of our vigil for our beautiful girl. Reminders of not only our grief but also our gratitude.
We watched, powerless, for the excruciating two years of her illness. Lost too young – at only 31 years of age – to the insidious invasion of cancerous cells that consumed her body. The disease fast and aggressive. Her decline painfully slow and arduous, yet her time with us all too short. Her babies only two and six years old when she died. The overwhelming, all-encompassing ordeal more traumatic and distressing than any family should have to endure.
We tend her grave with the respect and honour she deserves.
I cannot keep a house plant alive, yet I continue to buy potted plants that will, according to the labels, thrive in the full-sun conditions of the unshaded cemetery. Some do not survive or are nibbled to sticks by the kangaroos that visit in the evening, and these remnants I throw into the wheelie bin. I’m proud that four plants are flourishing – sprouting new shoots, spreading their leafy tentacles across the grass, flowering with tiny bursts of colour.
The thriving foliage – a living representation of my enduring love – now gone.
The healing stone given to me by my son at Christmas, broken in two, half kept with me and half placed on my daughter’s headstone. Gone.
The friendship plaque placed by her friend from Perth. Gone.
The interesting sticks and circles of rocks chosen by my daughter’s children. Taken. Swept away unceremoniously. Dumped. Discarded like junk. These precious tokens. These meticulously and protectively selected reminders.
I understand that cemeteries and memorial gardens want to uphold an image of peace and serenity, but who decides what constitutes beauty? Rather than a soulless expanse of lush green, and marble headstones, surely these places of ageless sleep are made original and beautiful by the mementos that replicate the personality of the person mourned?
Over the months, I have come to know my daughter’s “neighbours”. The man with the Kombi van. The young girl with a fairy and a reindeer. The middle-aged guy with the attentive toy dog. The Māori grandmother three graves down covered in wind chimes, handmade pottery and a racehorse. These relics define us; they are vestiges of the person we love and grieve. Objects that tell a story of a life.
I cannot bear to think about the children’s section, usually adorned with balloons, teddy bears, a tricycle, dolls, banners, balls, action figures, superhero masks, fairy lights and favourite picture books wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain.
Grieving is so very difficult and expressions of grief so individual and ingrained, from shrines to mausoleums, from the scattering of ashes to a daily gift of fruit for the deceased, from chanting to prayers to song. It doesn’t matter if the loss occurred in recent weeks, or many years ago. To cultivate the remembrance of our loved ones, without interference, helps us live beside the heartache.
The words we choose for her headstone are a significant and permanent elegy. But they are not enough. We visit, we tidy, we discard, we add, we change. This opportunity to care for her final place of rest is sacred. We want her to know we are here.
And so I go to see for myself.
Yes, it is pristine. It is tidy and manicured.
But is it beautiful?
Is beauty to be found in a well-tended lawn? Or is it found in the precious knick-knacks and unique mementos of life that we place on the cairn of our beloved? Objects that have no special meaning except to us. Her people, who miss her.
Mother’s Day approaches; my first without my firstborn.
I arrange fresh flowers in a standard, sanctioned vase attached to her headstone. Chrysanthemums of the palest pink, they exude beautiful impermanence. I try not to think about how they will look in three days’ time.
I also bring a large screwdriver, the first tool to hand in our disorganised garage.
I dig a hole near her headstone, kiss my half of the healing stone and push it deep in the soil, burying it so it is invisible.
Safe in the earth that cradles the body of my daughter.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 10, 2025 as "Object lessons".
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