The rituals of grief are enduring, their meanings familiar across many cultures: We remember those who have died, we mark the places where their bodies lie, we sense that our relationships with those we love don\u2019t end when their lives do, and we pray for their condition in the afterlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Catholics remember the dead on All Souls Day, Nov. 2\u2014the second day after Halloween, the day following All Saints Day. We visit the places where the dead rest, bringing flowers and standing before the names etched in stone. There in the graveyard, we pray for them and ask them to pray for us in the afterlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what happens when those places disappear? America is rapidly drifting away from traditional burial. The norm has increasingly become cremation. The National Funeral Directors Association reported that 63.4% of Americans who died in 2025 were cremated, and the rate is expected to rise to 82.3% by 2045.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old, earthy connection of death to a particular location\u2014the tie of grief and memory to physical place\u2014is loosening. Only 20% to 40% of cremated remains are buried or interred at a cemetery, according to the Cremation Association of North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> "A cemetery is more than a resting place. It\u2019s a landscape of grief, a physical expression of love, and a reminder that those who have died remain part of the world of the living."\n\n@Faithika: The Days of the Graveyard May Be Numbered https:\/\/t.co\/veZnyc23i5 via @WSJopinion<\/p>— John J. Miller (@heymiller) October 30, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>\n