Honoring Loved Ones In Moldova

Tonight, I went to the Cojusna cemetery with my host mother and sister. It was at the top of one of the hills, and it looked very different than US cemeteries. For each grave, there is an iron cross instead of a gravestone. The simpler graves have just the person’s name, birth date, and death date. But some people have very elaborate graves, with marble memorials in addition to the iron cross. 

There are also small picnic tables throughout the cemetery. It seems that families come to honor their loved ones and use the tables to have meals in honor of their loved ones. And it doesn’t look like there is much of a groundkeeper because the grass doesn’t look like it has ever been cut.

It was my host mom’s mother’s birthday. We walked to the grave, and set all of the stuff we brought on the table beside her grave. They began to remove some of the shrubbery that had grown on her grave. Then, my host mom poured a glass of wine to pass around to each person to make a cheer in honor of their loved one.

My mother pulled out some candles and lit them, and we placed them in the grave. My family then passed around a pastry, two cookies that were basically giant flavored marshmallows, and 4 plain cookies. I didn’t really know what to do at this point because I thought them might be put on the grave or something. But they were for us to eat in honor of my mom’s mother. So I joined my family and had the giant marshmallows. And like my family, I took the rest home to be eaten later.