Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Kei­th Bel­grove, says the tra­di­tions of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days are dwin­dling.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Bel­grove said, “Al­though cre­ma­tions are on the rise, with around 60 per cent of deaths in Trinidad and To­ba­go now re­sult­ing in cre­ma­tion, there are still ways for fam­i­lies to ho­n­our their loved ones us­ing cre­mat­ed re­mains and urns.”

He added, “For in­stance, at the Or­ange Grove Memo­r­i­al Gar­dens peo­ple fre­quent­ly vis­it, as it pro­vides a se­cure and well-main­tained en­vi­ron­ment. While dig­i­tal in­flu­ences are im­pact­ing tra­di­tion­al prac­tices, the se­cure and well-kept set­ting at Or­ange Grove shows that peo­ple do still vis­it.”

This, he said, sup­port­ed the tra­di­tion.

He al­so saw tech­nol­o­gy as part of the de­cline.

“We’ve been notic­ing this trend for years, es­pe­cial­ly start­ing with the ba­by boomers—my gen­er­a­tion—and the gen­er­a­tion that fol­lowed. This tra­di­tion be­gan to fade, and now with Gen X and Gen Z, it’s even more pro­nounced. With tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal op­tions avail­able, younger gen­er­a­tions are find­ing new ways to ho­n­our their loved ones on­line, rather than con­tin­u­ing tra­di­tion­al prac­tices,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that it might be ben­e­fi­cial for the Min­istry of Rur­al and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er re­view­ing ceme­tery poli­cies and im­ple­ment­ing a main­te­nance fee to help cov­er up­keep and pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty dur­ing these ob­ser­vances, po­ten­tial­ly spark­ing re­newed in­ter­est in these tra­di­tions.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Mu­cu­rapo Ceme­tery in Port-of-Spain was still bustling, with grave sites be­ing paint­ed and grass be­ing trimmed.

Shel­don Nar­i­nesingh shared with Guardian Me­dia his rea­sons for keep­ing the tra­di­tion alive.

“It’s a fam­i­ly tra­di­tion for me to main­tain the graves, some­thing we’ve done since my child was young. As a Catholic, I have a fam­i­ly his­to­ry stretch­ing back gen­er­a­tions—from my great-grand­moth­er who came from In­dia to my moth­er, fa­ther, grand­par­ents, and even my aunt and grand­fa­ther, all buried here. There’s a whole lega­cy rest­ing here, one that I’ve known my en­tire life,” he said.

De­spite this, he not­ed a de­cline in the tra­di­tion over the years, at­tribut­ing crime as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor.

“There’s no tra­di­tion left here. Look around—it’s so qui­et. I re­mem­ber com­ing here as a boy; there used to be crowds, fam­i­lies every­where. Now, we can’t even come with fam­i­ly. My aunts, my sis­ters—they used to come too, but it doesn’t feel safe to walk through here any­more,” he ex­plained.

Eve­lyn Fos­ter, who has con­tin­ued the tra­di­tion for her rel­a­tives at the Mu­cu­rapo Ceme­tery, said, “I’m here to do my part be­cause it’s a tra­di­tion. Every year, we come to pay our re­spects to our loved ones. This start­ed with my grand­moth­er, and my fa­ther was the last one we buried here about 15 years ago.

“I have to say, it’s a tra­di­tion that’s fad­ing. Years ago, on No­vem­ber 1, you’d see so many peo­ple here, fam­i­lies com­ing to­geth­er to pay re­spects. Now, you hard­ly see any­one keep­ing it up. The younger gen­er­a­tion, they’re not like­ly to car­ry on what we’re do­ing here to­day, ho­n­our­ing All Souls’ Day. But we’re still mak­ing the ef­fort to come and pay our re­spects to the fam­i­ly mem­bers who came be­fore us, and we’ll keep do­ing it, be­cause it’s where we come from—it’s part of our roots.”

All Souls’ Day, ob­served on No­vem­ber 2nd, is a day of prayer and re­mem­brance for the faith­ful de­part­ed. It fo­cus­es on pray­ing for the souls in pur­ga­to­ry, help­ing them on their jour­ney to­ward heav­en, and is a time for fam­i­lies to ho­n­our and re­mem­ber de­ceased loved ones. Both days are im­por­tant in the Catholic and Chris­t­ian tra­di­tions, with All Saints’ cel­e­brat­ing sanc­ti­ty and All Souls’ fo­cus­ing on re­mem­brance.