All Saints Day?

I have a hard time getting my head around this holiday, as do most of us here in Lithuania. Most of us found out a couple years ago, when it was announced, that the day we celebrate, Vėlinės, is not All Saints Day at all, but rather All Souls Day. How am I sure I wasn't the only one mixed up? Because All Souls Day is tomorrow, November 2nd, and very few people will be at the cemetery tomorrow; they were all there today, as evidenced by all the candles in these pictures.

According to the Internet, All Saints Day is the celebration of all saints in heaven, and All Souls Day is the celebration of everybody who died but is not in yet. Because Lithuanians do typically celebrate All Souls Day (on the wrong day), can it possibly be that they purposely "commemorate the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached heaven." -Wikipedia

They think their loved ones haven't been let into Heaven yet? Weird! Before going on I should point out that I don't understand the purpose of decorating graves. We bury people so that they can get up for the resurrection. I'm with you so far. Then we turn the graves into big fancy show pieces. Why? I don't see it. From what I've gathered from my wife, the cemetery caretaker, and a few other people, the person buried there will no longer be respected if his grave doesn't meet certain standards. I call them beauty pageant standards. I don't buy that. "Irregardless," everybody else here does, so we have to play by their rules. I guess it makes sense in a place where your neighbors rate your success in life based on how many wreathes make it to your coffin.

Here's the view up the first hill in the evening.

Behind my daughter are the graves stones for the Polish soldiers found in a mass grave.

Normally for Vėlinės you tidy up the grave and plant some new flowers and put up some candles.

Then anybody else who wants to comes by and adds to that.

Someone even removed the leaves, which I'm not happy about: we decided it looks nice with the fallen October leaves. They were a nice gold color.

The other thing we did this year was to move the monument to the middle of the grave site and replace the existing epitaph (for Senelis) with one for both of them.

In case you can't make it out, it reads (I have to use periods to get the spacing close to right):

LIETUVOS SAVANORIAI

....PULKININKAS........................... VADOVĖ

........PROFESORIUS.......................ŠVIETIMIETĖ

................GAMTININKAS ...............VISUOMENININKĖ

................JUOZAS ................VAIVA RADASTA

............VĖBRA.............................VĖBRAITĖ

...........1901-1994...........................1954-2008