Memorial Park Envy: My Halloween Post

My family is not big on Halloween. The trick or treat activity only caught on in the country the past few years. In my city, Halloween parties are usually organized by business establishments.  The closest thing Halloween-ish we do is clean our loved ones tomb in time for the All Souls Day.  That is exactly what we did on October 30.

My uncle and I helped clean the family mausoleum. Yes, the roof needs to be painted.

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This is how the memorial park looks like. It is a typical Philippine cemetery.
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There are grand mausoleums at the entrance which I do not have a picture to show.

Since time immemorial, this cemetery’s lone road is unpaved.

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It looks okay in the photo but imagine what this looks like on All Souls Day.  Vehicles are parked on both sides of the road. There is only one lane to use and we have to exit on a dirt road with a high possibility of being stuck in the mud. Just hope and pray it does not rain. Mind you, this is a private cemetery. At the present rate, people pay hundreds of thousands of pesos to get a memorial lot here. You would think the owner can get the road paved. No, not in this cemetery.

You would understand why we have a memorial park envy with the other private cemetery. After cleaning the mausoleum, we dropped by the other cemetery just to check out the place. This was recently developed. We have long bought our cemetery lot even before the owners thought about developing the place so buying a lot here is no longer an option. In fact, the owners still have loved ones buried in our cemetery. (When I say “our cemetery”, it means the cemetery where my loved ones are buried. We do not own the cemetery.)

This is a first mausoleum that welcomed us when we entered the other memorial park.
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This is a mausoleum that the owner built for his son who died in his sleep.
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See the lake up there? There are ducks and koi.
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While we were sitting in that small wharf near the lake, we were waiting for the koi to surface. They did not. It was not feeding time yet.
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Who would have thought this is a cemetery.
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You can rent the cottage if your family needs a space to host memorial prayers and activities.

It even has a playground for the kids.
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This does not look a mausoleum but it is!
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Below are the rows of mausoleums. The roads are paved!
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There are affordable options. One can buy memorial plots here (no, not in the mountains). The green lawn in the foreground are memorial plots.
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Now you understand why we envy this cemetery. 😀

The advantage of being in our cemetery? There is this huge mango tree full of fruits.  The people inside the tomb underneath the mango tree used to be our neighbors.
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Kids who lived near the cemetery said that it is okay to pick the fruits when I lamented how I wanted to eat those mangoes. And so we did.   (Yes, my cousin also wanted to show off his tattoo.)

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From cemetery to the plate, this is the spookiest thing we did for Halloween. 😀
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