Grave Thieves

Yes, that's what I'm calling the employees at the cemetery.  Cleanup day of all the old flowers and decorations was  the second week of March.  Chris and I went up yesterday to change out the St. Patrick Day decorations for some Easter and spring decorations.  To our disappointment, everything was removed from Nathan's grave.  It upset me because we spent some money on some of the different items up there and there were gifts from friends and family and the workers just cleared everything from every grave, no matter how old it was.  Unlike many, we're there all the time cleaning up his area. None of his decorations were old or needed to be thrown away.  The baby garden was empty and sad. We had a ladybug that sat on his grave that my sister got, 2 angels from unknown people, the UC garden gnome, the Pittsburgh Penguins garden gnome, and a blue solar light. All of that was removed and thrown away. I guess describing me as upset is an understatement, I'm pretty angry about the situation.  We, of course, put up the new decorations and stopped by the office to see what the deal was and if all of the valuables they removed from all the graves, especially the babies', were truly gone.

Since the office was closed yesterday afternoon, I called up there this morning for clarification.  The lady stated that everything had to be removed by every Wednesday.  Seriously?  In the baby garden? I am having her check with others since I remember when we were picking out a plot for Nathan in October that the one thing that brought us comfort was how decorated all of the graves were in the baby garden.  It's irritating.  It's not bad enough to lose a child, but to deal with stupid, little things like this after the fact just bring all the bad feelings to the surface. So, in summary, I'm pissed. I don't want to go visit an empty grave.  Nathan's a baby, not an 90 year old person who was expected to pass and had lived their life.  Nathan's a baby and should have baby decorations.

Love you, Nathan. Obviously, I would do anything for you.

This is what the baby garden normally looks like. Nathan's grave is in the back left.

Nathan's spring decorations