the usual Undas celebration (for all Saints day/day to remember the dead) is forbidden due to the virus, with the gates locked and armed police guarding the entrances to the various older (ungated) and newer (gated) areas. Even the funeral for our next door neighbor will have to wait five days until they allow the cemeteries to reopen.
Of course, with the news warning us that a supertyphoon is due to hit Luzon tonite, we are staying home. But so far this morning it is cloudy and the atmosphere is heavy, but no rain or wind yet...the calm before the storm.
Lolo's grave is under the floor because he wanted a plain gravesite as they do in the USA...alas no open sites were available so we had to buy a plot where there were only small houses and usually the tomb is on top of the floor, but we placed his grave under the floor as he wished, which means there is a larger area for us to party/celebrate. The grave has lights inside, which usually are stolen and have to be replaced, despite the lock on the door.
There are two other family sites: The one with Lolo's mother and our cousins, in the older cemetery, and a similar gravesite for 2 of his nephew and his father.
In the USA, Catholics usually attend mass, but except for Mexicans, the cemetery visits are not usually done in November, but on Memorial day, where people often decorate the war dead but since it is Spring and the winter debris needs to be cleaned, often folks visit the cemeteries to clean them up and put flowers there. Alas, my parents are buried in our old neighborhood, so I only visited them every couple of years, and since their site is in an area forbidding flowers or large tombstones, we don't send flowers their (ironically, half a mile over, in the older area of the same cemetery, they do allow decorations, but that area is so crowded I can't find my way to the site of my grandmother's grave so haven't visited it since 30 years ago when I visited it with my mother).
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