"The grave's a fine and private place
But none I fear do there embrace."

These lines were quoted in a wonderful little novel by Peter S. Beagle. Extra credit to anybody who remembers the title of the novel or the name of the poet quoted.

I learned from my mother that cemeteries are fine and public places, and one should feel welcome there as a temporary guest, even if one is not yet quite ready to use all the services provided. Ironically, my mother was buried in a churchyard, not a cemetery.

As Machka said, you can learn a lot in a cemetery. In a lovely old cemetery in the Sleeping Bear dunes, several settlers died in the same year. It must have been a bad year in that lonely little northern community, to lose such a large contingent, some of them babies and (even worse) young children. I have eaten lunch in that cemetery and nobody complained. In Jackson, MI there was a beautiful large cemetery across from the best deli in town. Needless to say, I ate lunch there often. A couple miles away, almost under a bridge by the Grand River, there was a tiny Jewish cemetery, with the gravestones almost touching one another. Many of the stones had hands engraved on them. I don't know what that means, but they were lovely. How interesting that a small city in Michigan had a Jewish population large enough to support a cemetery, even though I don't believe they ever supported a synagogue. There is a large and ornate cemetery near where I live in Lansing. R.E. Olds is buried, or entombed, in a little cement house there. I ride my bike there frequently, just as one leg of a little jaunt. Again, nobody seems to mind. There is a sign posted with the hours and the rules, and I do observe them. I'm not necessarily quiet or sedate in a cemetery, but I do treat mourners with respect and dignity. I think the dead themselves deserve respect, but not necessarily dignity. As someone on this forum said memorably of fallen cyclists, "I salute 'em and I ride on." (More extra credit to the one who remembers who that forum member was. I'm sorry that I forgot it.) I don't think there's anything wrong with being close to dead people and enjoying the little parks we have made for them. It's good to recall that we will be permanent residents there someday, if we don't end up in a churchyard like mother. "You are from dust and to dust you will return."