Maybe it is what all of you have said as well as a remembrance. Personally I don't like funerals. I want to remember the person as they were when alive.

It can be an eye-opening perspective. My grandfather wanted to vist my grandmother's grave. I took him there. He was at peace. It was a bice closure fro him as they had been apart for many years.

He remarked that I had her birthday wrong by five years. She was not that old, he claimed. I told him I had gotten the date from her birth certificate. He was astonished, but laughed.

She had lied about her age when they met. She was actually five years older than him. He was 24 when they married, she was 29, but she had told him they were the same age.

He took it as part of her "very playful nature" and revisited some very happy thoughts about her.

For peace!

My mother who is religious believes so much in how much visiting graves could cure our black feelings from rage, jealous, envy and send peace into our chest and she believes more in its role in praying what in our view is manifestation based on a story of her friend who continued on visiting her grandma grave to pray to get pregnant she did and have 3 babies at once, they all born is good health and live.

Those souls with the surrendered bodies that supposed to occupy the cemetery are in a true uncorrupted continues connection with source. This state must assist our minds and souls when they seek meditation for pray/manifest and spread peace and comfort in our whole parts, that comfort we need to create. Away from the noise of outside life, away from traffic streets, salons, malls and such... beside the grave which comprise beloved ones in their state of static our minds can flaw, imagine, reconnect and manifest.

My mother set a day which is Thursday for the family to visit my father grave who died 17 years ago, to set our vows and pray. So with my sister who is working on her marriage manifestation and for me on business we are visiting the grave every Thursday to meditate get the peace feeling and manifest.

It could that every one of us is going from his point religious one (my mother and sister), or spiritual, universal which is mine, but sure the place is peaceful, creates peace!

I am from totally different cultural background - then again, I lived near the Graveyard for three years around. As @Grace said, I am not visiting to see the particular grave there in, then again I used to visit almost everyday there - and it is the place I am missing now since I just moved to another place couple of days back.

For me, it is the most peaceful place where I feel serenity and calm - I respect the place as much as I do any religious place I have been - whether it be Church, Mosque, Monastery, Temple or any. Beside that, I want to remind myself time and again with 'One day, I am going to leave this Body' feeling - and that sentence inside the quote is one of the sentence that makes so much sense in my life :)

Finally, to @Grace: I felt your real story so touchy. I am sorry to know - but you really shared something valuable here.

Because it reminds us of our destiny. To go to a grave yard gives a sense of no matter what I do, where I go, how much I achieve I too will one day end up here as a permanent resident.

When we think like that, we contemplate our own death so visiting the grave to talk with loved ones is holding up hope that this is not the end for that person and will not be the end for us as well.

It seems a subconscious thing and also seems why grave yards seem weird and spooky. We know that we will end up here whether we want to or not want to.

Edit added

I have given this some further thought, we see this as a physical place of residence much like if this person were alive and we visited him at his home. A more advanced way to visit and I believe maybe even more fulfilling way is to (again make this a purposeful visit in other words put the same effort into this visit as you do going to the grave) go be by your self someplace maybe even someplace you remember being with him at and sit down and say, "I will now visit him." If you have a picture this may help, stare at his picture a while before closing your eyes, we communicate in many words but that is harder to get through than feelings. We tend to think of feelings and emotions as internal responses, they are much more our creations. Love is a tangible thing, so is hate this is why people "feel" the presence of ghost they feel the emotion coming from the ghost. It is an energy and the highest gift we can give to those on the other side is that of love. The next highest gift we can give is light. Golden or white light are very good. These thoughts are things and they reach between the vials of our worlds. This will be the start of your communication and visits not on this physical side as the gave yard visits but on the spirit side.

This was how I learned when being helped by an angel to repay them, I see how beneficial this would be to people we know on the other side. Hold them in love and peace for a while as long as you feel good and genuine, when it starts feeling like work that is when to stop. I suppose this would be as well a wonderful gift to God of appreciation really that is what this is a gift of appreciation, approval and happiness.

If we think for a moment when we are together we may be sharing a deeply meaningful conversation and really enjoying it but why are we enjoying that time together? Is it the words we share? Would we feel those same very happy feelings had we to have read them from some unknown author on a piece of paper? Or is there a spiritual conversation going on that has nothing to do with those words that says, "I enjoy our time together, I appreciate you, you are valuable to me, I am glad we are here talking, I am happy with you, it is wonderful being here with you." In other words LOVE, I don't just mean love like partner husband/wife boyfriend/girlfriend love, I mean family and friendship love as well, even colleague love. Someone you enjoy working with that you just click as partners at the work place. That is love. Love is mentioned in the Bible:

In the King James version

the word - love - appears 310 times the word - love's - appears once the word - loved - appears 98 times the word - lovedst - appears twice the word - lovely - appears 4 times the word - lover - appears 4 times the word - lovers - appears 23 times the word - loves - appears twice the word - lovest - appears 12 times the word - loveth - appears 65 times the word - loving - appears 3 times the word - lovingkindness - appears 26 times the word - lovingkindnesses - appears 4 times

Love is pretty important to God it should be to us as well, it is the key between the spirit side and our physical side.

This entire website is an exchange of love, we are here because we love to share, we love to share because we love the feeling we get of being shred with. Sharing is an expression of love, it is giving, gratitude, feeling belonging, and welcoming in other words LOVE.

When it comes down to it all the words we use in everyday speaking with anyone, what is the purpose behind those words? This is either unity or division, love or death, real death not what we believe is death but division, aloneness, pain, and suffering. As Jesus said, "The penalty of sin is death."