Flowerless Cemetery Feels ‘Cold’

A vase of flowers hangs at the Gate of Heaven mausoleum. There are fewer flowers there after the Catholic Cemetery Association began throwing out flower arrangements. (MARLA BROSE/JOURNAL)

The Catholic Cemetery Association, an independent agency that manages two Catholic cemeteries in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe, describes its mission to the living on its website: “By encouraging the visits of family and friends of the deceased, we seek to foster an environment on which love is remembered, hope is rekindled and faith is awakened and strengthened.”

Nanci Carriveau has never needed any encouragement to visit the mausoleum at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Albuquerque, where her parents and brother are entombed. The place is beautiful – high, gleaming granite walls, skylights that let in muted light and bronze nameplates to identify those laid to rest in the crypts.

And until last year, it was awash in the color of flowers.

Carriveau met me at Gate of Heaven on a cold, gloomy morning to show me what the final resting place for her family looks like now.

“This used to be full of flowers,” she said as we walked past a who’s who of Albuquerque family names on bronze markers. “It was so beautiful. I used to come here and sit and look at the flowers. It made me feel so warm and so loved.”

That was before the Catholic Cemetery Association, which had already mandated that only artificial flowers be allowed in its mausoleums, enacted a policy that it would clear away decorations in the mausoleums every month and outside in the cemetery every week.

That left a few options for families. They could pick up their flower arrangements on the day before the big cleanup, then put them back later. They could treat their flower arrangements as disposable and allow them to be taken and trashed once a month or once a week. Or they could stop bringing flowers.

As Carriveau and I meandered through the vaults in the mausoleum, it was obvious that most families have chosen the third option.

The place was bare of flowers, save for maybe a half-dozen arrangements. It felt somber, barren.

“Like a mausoleum,” Carriveau said.

To others – those who complained about the glut of flower arrangements – it looks neat and clean, the cemetery association’s director, Leah DeTommaso, told me. The association receives many calls and letters about how decorations are treated at the perpetual care cemeteries, she said. Since the association enacted its cleanup policy, DeTommaso said, the comments have been running about 50-50 for and against.

And so it is with another aspect of our lives, a dividing line.

Carriveau finds comfort in visiting her family’s crypt and sitting in front of the slot labeled J. Robert, Su and Jr. and catching them up on what’s going on with the family.

Carriveau used to bring new arrangements four times a year – silk poinsettias in the winter, geraniums (her mother’s favorite) in the spring, daisies in the summer and an autumnal arrangement in the fall.

On April 26, she arrived with a bouquet of silk daisies to replace the geraniums and found the mausoleum cleared of decorations, including her $35 worth of geraniums.

It wasn’t the money that bothered Carriveau; it was what the flowers represented. “They are the only way that we who are alive can say ‘I love you’ to those who passed away,” she said.

DeTommaso told me that the change in policy was reported in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe newspaper, People of God, and that fliers were posted at the cemeteries to give families fair warning of the change.

Carriveau never saw a notice, and she was surprised and angry. She isn’t a crazed, flower-power zealot. She’s 64, retired recently from administrative work, and she drives a practical Subaru and goes to Mass weekly.

She said she could understand cemetery managers getting rid of tattered or dirty displays. But today’s silk flowers are beautiful and last a long time. The mausoleum is a climate-controlled building, so flowers placed there don’t get dirty or faded by the sun or shredded by the wind.

So, what is the problem with flowers remaining at a crypt for more than 30 days?

Carriveau, through months of emails, wasn’t able to get an answer, other than that the board of directors of the Catholic Cemetery Association, whose names no one would divulge to Carriveau, enacted the policy early last year and that it wasn’t going to change.

DeTommaso told me the concerns had to do with spiders building spider webs in the arrangements, with holiday-specific decorations looking out of place months later and with flowers lining the aisles of the chapel that sits in the middle of the Gate of Heaven mausoleum, where funeral and memorial Masses are celebrated.

DeTommaso acknowledged that hers is an emotional business and that people feel strongly about the memorials they leave at grave sites. Knowing they are being thrown in the trash can hurt.

There’s another emotional wrinkle to Carriveau’s concerns about the flowerless mausoleum. There are spaces for four in her family crypt, and when she passes away, it will be her final resting place.

“Death is a very personal thing,” she told me. When the place was filled with flower arrangements and memorials, she said, “people’s personalities were here. I just felt like this was home. Now it feels cold.”

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
See FLOWERLESS on PAGE A2Flowerless Cemetery Feels ‘Cold’from PAGE A1MARLA BROSE/JOURNALThis notice about flowers in the mausoleum at Gate of Heaven says flowers will be removed once they become unsightly, but the cemetery’s policy is to throw all flowers away once a month.”This used to be full of flowers. It was so beautiful. I used to come here and sit and look at the flowers. It made me feel so warm and so loved.”NANCI CARRIVEAU

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal