Sunday, July 12, 2009

Grave Crime

Four workers at a local cemetery - a big historic African-American cemetery - are charged with digging up bodies and reselling the space.

Basically, they were cheating the cemetery owners, and tossing about the remains of the dead. The accused workers are also African Americans, so there's no suggestion this is a racist thing. It's just an uncaring crooked thing. And it's a horrible mess.
Dart said he wished he could tell families that the confusion at the cemetery would be sorted out, but the sprawling site and its records are in such disarray that he is not confident that will happen.
I sometimes visit relatives' graves. They're within jogging distance. I don't really think about their buried bodies. I think about about how I miss them.

Graves are designed to give
a place to grieve - to those who live.

2 comments:

Morgan Mandel said...

Strange how as soon as people die, they're dehumanized. Their bodies become remains. Already it seems they lose respect. That said, what happened at Burr Oak defies imagination.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogpsot.com
http://www.morganmandel.com

John Enright said...

Most of us struggle with acceptance when a loved one dies. It's hard to accept that this leaving breathing body is now a dead body, and we have all these customs, and phrases, in place to try to make the transition easier. But usually it's not easy at all.