A Gravely Rant

Pissed off does not come close to correctly describing how I feel regarding Bobby's grave pictured above - the one at the bottom of the picture covered in weeds that is, not the one at the top of the photo. Yes that really is my Sons grave.

To start from the beginning; we had Bobby buried by the hospital simply because we did not know where to start when it came to arranging a funeral and most importantly, nor did we have the money to pay for it. Because he was buried by the hospital it meant that his grave is classed as a 'public grave' and having your baby buried publicly means that you have no choice but to share your childs grave with fourteen other little babies.

Nineteen months have now passed and several times over those nineteen months I have called the cemetery to ask them for an idea as to when the memorial stone will be placed upon the grave. Seeing as though every other shared baby grave around Bobby's had the exact same stone placed upon it, I presumed this is what we would get.

Every single time I spoke to someone at the cemetery, I was advised that they were waiting for the ground to settle before the stone could be laid.

This afternoon I call to ask yet again the exact same question but this time I am given a completely different answer. I am told that we are responsible for laying the stone.

I have no problem with arranging and paying for the memorial stone but WHY NOT TELL ME THIS NINETEEN MONTHS AGO?!

For nineteen months I have come away from visiting his grave feeling depressed because quite frankly, its a shit hole. In all honesty I have on quite a few occasions put off visiting because it is so depressing and it often leads to us having an argument about it.

So, to get things moving I have called a local masons and have given them my number to call back to discuss in more details as to what to do next. Apparently the cemetry need an application form from us from the masons and a payment of £47 which will take two to three weeks to process their end and then it will take however long it takes the masons to fit the stone.

In the mean time I have to think of something to go onto the stone. Because Bobby shares his grave with fourteen others, I can not and would not out of respect word the memorial directly to Bobby; it must be addressed to all of them. What about their parents I hear you say ... well in the nineteen months that he has been buried we have never come across anyone else at the grave and we have never seen any items left upon the grave so in my mind they either wish to 'put it behind' them or they like us, are waiting on the memorial stone to be placed before they do leave something.

Who knows. All I know is that Bobby's grave will be sorted by the time his second birthday comes around in July if it bankrupts me or not.