In Louisiana culture, family bonds are strong, and All Saints' Day reinforces that element by stressing the ties to deceased members of the family group and the community.
The wonderful custom of sprucing up and festooning tombs and graves with flowers, usually chrysanthemums, the November birth flower, creates a beautiful visual representation of honoring the dead and speaks to posterity about the importance of praying for the deceased. In some Catholic parishes, tombs and grave markers are decorated with lighted candles.
The week before All Saints is a time of intense preparation. Undergrowth, weeds, and any cemetery trash are cleaned up, and tombs and graves, most of which have copings or slabs or in some other way conform to the South Louisiana style of raised grave structures, are painted or washed.
Sometimes the congregation, led by the priest, walks in procession to the cemetery. There they pray for all the holy souls in front of the cemetery, the priest recites the liturgical prayers for the dead and blesses the graves with holy water. Afterward the families separate to offer private prayers at the graves of their loved ones.
Rows and rows of decorated tombs and graves surrounding the huge crucifix centrally located in the Loreauville cemetery speak to the devotion of this community to maintain strong ties to deceased family and friends.
On the afternoon of All Saints Day or in the morning of All Souls, the faithful visit each individual grave of relatives and friends. Sometimes the congregation, led by the priest, walks in procession to the cemetery. There they pray for all the holy souls in front of the cemetery, the priest recites the liturgical prayers for the dead and blesses the graves with holy water. Afterward the families separate to offer private prayers at the graves of their loved ones.
Lower Louisiana is famous for its "Cities of the Dead," the cemeteries of above-ground tombs and wall crypts, or "ovens." Because so much of the area is below sea level, coffins did not readily stay in the ground but rather floated to the top. It only took a heavy rain to raise the dead. To address the problem authorities at times prohibited interment in the ground. Thus, most south Louisianians were, and still are, buried above the earth's surface.
My sister Willette and I spent an afternoon bleaching family tombs and cleaning debris surrounding family plots.
I took a nostalgic tour, walking down every row of the cemetery, noting familar names of friends and acquaintances. The bird is on the wing, as poets say, as the past seems to have flown by.
Standing and praying at a cement memorial housing the remains of a loved one seems to ease the separation of physical and enhance the spiritual sense that our loved ones are still connected to us.
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