Cemetery Kite Flying! Disrespectful or Not?

Kite flying in a cemetery? What do you think? I watched a bunch of kids and two adults weave in and around head stones and one kid even sitting on a headstone as they were flying a kite in a cemetery Sunday afternoon. I thought maybe a family member who loved kites was there, but even with that, it seemed wrong to go running all over these other people’s graves. Am I off base?

If you want to run around like that, they have these things called...um….parks!

I am a cemetery walker.  The cemetery I walk in has a lot of activity for a cemetery. It is great for jogging or walking. There is not a lot of traffic, well cared for and this cemetery allows one to walk dogs as long as you stay on the roadways and away from the headstones and pick up after the dog. They even have trash cans! I do my best to be respectful. If I see people who are there to care for a loved one’s grave, I will detour around them, to give them some privacy. After all it is a cemetery, not my back yard.

I am no prude about such matters. Gees, I have even joked I want a fire hydrant headstone so dogs WILL come visit. But that is me talking about ME! I would never presume that would be ok with any other family. Yes, I have gone into the areas with the grave stones a few times. I try to walk in the areas between the graves and it was at the end of the walk so Shadow was calm and not going to do anything ‘doggie’.  I have done it to see head stones of interest. I don’t linger and always behave in such a way that if I turned around a family member of that person was there, it would be clear I was being as respectful as I could possibly be.

I just keep telling myself they were there on Father’s Day to visit grandpa's grave and he loved to fly kites. It is much better story line in my mind that they just had no idea what they were doing.