A Lighter View
Grave disturbances
By K.E.H. Stagg

May 6, 2010

It’s always bothered me that a certain element of society finds entertainment value in vandalizing cemeteries: tipping over or breaking tombstones, strewing floral arrangements and the like. I’ve also abhorred the practice of those who “liberate” fresh flowers from graves for their own personal use.

However, I recently had cause to learn from personal experience that irresponsible behavior has escalated from tacky to downright criminal. My immediate family and I spent a substantial sum on a silk floral display intended to last the remainder of the year on Mom’s grave. Imagine my surprise when the display disappeared lock, stock and barrel after 2 weeks in the “new” Dillsburg Cemetery along Golf Course Road off U.S. Route 15.

Someone—and he or she knows exactly who I’m talking about—spirited away Mom’s gigantic floral display. S/he didn’t leave a single leaf of the enormous lilacs, hydrangeas, forsythia, allum, tuberoses, peonies and cosmos. Not a shard of glass from the humongo glass vase, not a single fist-sized red rock that weighted the vase to the ground. Nothing.

Scott Brenneman, president of the Dillsburg Cemetery Association, said, “From time to time, we hear about flowers being stolen off graves and sold at yard sales or flea markets.” Unbelievable! How low can Dillsburgers go? I realize it may not be locals thieving from our cemetery, but the very idea that anyone, even a stranger, is stealing from Dillsburg’s dead makes me see red. That they might turn a profit from their pilfering makes my blood pressure and temperature rise in tandem.

A person’s final resting place on the earth is virtually a sacred space. It’s bad enough to suffer the untimely loss of a beloved family member and be limited to placing small tributes as testament to the grief we feel at the too-early departure. So when some yahoo comes along and wantonly destroys those tributes, it’s a crying shame. And when it escalates to theft, well, that’s when I go on a rampage.

I’ve filed my official report with the Carroll Township police, and while I’m not vindictive enough to wish the same calloused disregard that my family has experienced on the perpetrator(s), I fervently hope that justice is served and they get caught out in their nefarious deeds. There’s no way they can make restitution for the past, but if their community service sentence were to dig up—by hand—all the dandelions, green onions and other weeds in the cemetery, that would almost make amends for vanishing flowers off the graves.

I also hope that the responsible individuals don’t get a decent night’s sleep until they’re caught, considering how much emotional distress they caused people who already experienced deep anguish. And if the criminal mischief-makers experience severe diarrhea, dandruff, erticaria, hives and psoriasis on top of the insomnia, well, so much the better!