On behalf of us all...
On behalf of us all...
Although I do agree with your point, I do have to say that some of the dead are more "honored" than others. And I believe most of those pre-planned their memorials. So I think there is truth in both points.
My condolences to you on the loss of your husband. He sounds like the kind of man who has the decency and modesty to choose against placing such a device in his own resting place.
Cemeteries have long been the cheapest form of prophylaxis from a public-health perspective; as ceremony they serve as silent reminders of the ineluctable nature of time.
I am sorry for your loss.
I think it's creepy too. I've been doing genealogy tracking a genetic flaw. It's creepy enough when you do a google search and come up with photo's of your dead relatives.
I remember the first time I saw an Iranian cemetery, with photos of the dead under glass. I thought it was strange, morbid, ghoulish; but I was mesmerised, looking at the pictures (many of them young). Later, I discovered that Russians sometimes memorialise their dead in the same way. For someone whose forebears are all Catholic (which religion forbids all "frivolous" decorations on monuments) or C of E (think "stuffy") it was quite an eye-opener.
In Afghanistan many are the graves marked only with a stick of wood. Without even the name of the decedent written upon it. If someone is wealthy, they might have a rude pole with a flag bearing a Koranic verse. Every nation, it seems, marks death its own way; except in the former-colonial bits of the Anglosphere we have a little of everything.
I think leaving a video is a good idea, for the family, but maybe the graveyard is not the place for it. To put a more positive spin on it, think of the picture that Harry Potter has of his parents. (if you've read the books or seen the movies). JK Rowling got the loss of a parent feeling exactly right, perhaps because she had experienced that herself.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F