For most people, a cemetery is a place of solemnity, ritual, and closure. For me—and for too many families I’ve served—it has also become a place of dread. My own family endured appalling treatment at my mother’s funeral in 2015, and again at the funerals of my uncle in 2017 and my aunt in 2019. Those experiences left scars that have never fully healed. They also made me fiercely protective of the families in my care. No one should have to grieve under conditions that feel dehumanizing.
Yet at Pinelawn Memorial Park, the same patterns persist.
When I arrived there today, I was stunned to find that the bathrooms were still closed and the same porta‑potties from the height of the pandemic were still in place—filthy, unsanitary, and wholly inappropriate for a facility that handles hundreds of mourners a week. My hearse driver checked them and returned visibly disgusted. But the lack of basic sanitation was only the beginning.
The cemetery office remains closed to funeral directors, forcing us to sign in at an outdoor tent while staff take their time processing paperwork. As we waited, I remarked to my heasr driver that it was astonishing—at this stage of the pandemic—that Pinelawn still operated under such restrictive conditions. Only the day before, at St. Charles Cemetery across the road, I had walked into a clean, open office and used spotless restrooms. The contrast could not have been more stark.
A man standing nearby overheard my comment and snapped, “We are the best cemetery in New York. During Covid we buried more bodies in a day than any other cemetery.” It was a defensive boast that revealed more than he intended. Yes, Pinelawn buried many people during the worst days of Covid. But at what emotional cost? Volume is not virtue. And from the stories shared with me by colleagues, those burials often lacked dignity, compassion, and transparency. They were not acts of charity. The cemetery was paid for every one.
By the time we reached the family’s crypt—forty‑five minutes late—the deacon was understandably frustrated and began the prayers before mourners had even left their cars. Then came the impossible task of explaining Pinelawn’s arbitrary rules to a grieving family: the casket, which they had never been allowed to see, could not be present for the committal; it would be placed in the crypt beforehand, out of sight. Only ten people could stand twenty feet away; the rest were relegated to the roadway. No one could place roses on the casket, a ritual as old as mourning itself. The deacon ended up praying to a curtain suspended high above us.
No explanation was offered—because none could justify such policies.
I apologized to the family again and again. A friend of the deceased asked, horrified, whether this was how the funeral industry treated people. The hearse driver and I assured her that these were Pinelawn’s rules, not ours. Only the day before, we had experienced the complete opposite (it was all positive) at St. Charles, a cemetery across the road. The lack of uniformity across cemeteries is baffling and deeply unfair to families who have no idea what they’re walking into.
After sharing this experience with a colleague—who had nearly the same story—we decided to seek clarification from the state cemetery bureau. At this point, there is no reasonable justification for operating as though Covid remains the dire threat it was in the spring. Long Island’s infection rates are low. Restaurants are full. As my fellow Morte Girl pointed out, “Surely the cemetery staff eats in restaurants and uses the restrooms there.”
What happened that day was not just operational failure. It was emotional harm.
During the service, the daughter of the deceased delivered a short eulogy about her complicated relationship with her adoptive mother—who, coincidentally, shared my own mother’s name. Hearing her words, set against the backdrop of these dehumanizing conditions, triggered searing memories of my own trauma at Pinelawn five years ago. It was a visceral PTSD flashback I have not been able to shake.
Cemeteries are entrusted with the most vulnerable moments of people’s lives. They should not be places where families feel dismissed, disrespected, or rushed through grief. They should not be places where funeral directors brace themselves for conflict. And they should never be places where trauma is repeated.
If you are a family or a funeral professional who has had a negative experience at Pinelawn—or any cemetery—I encourage you to share your story. Silence only protects the institutions that fail us. Transparency is the first step toward accountability.
The dead deserve dignity. The living deserve compassion. And cemeteries, of all places, should know that.
The Morte Girls 