Graves get clean-up for All Saints/All Souls’ Day

According to the website, catholicism.about.com, All Saints Day, which is celebrated on November 1, is the day on which Roman Catholics celebrate all the saints, known and unknown.

It is a surprisingly old feast which arose out of the Christian tradition of celebrating the martyrdom of saints. All Souls’ Day, also known as the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, is observed as a day of prayer for the deceased and when their graves are lit with candles.

At Paradise cemetery, San Fernando yesterday, Newsday met Harry Roopnarine who said he had performed the same ritual “year after year” for his loved ones.

Roopnarine, who lives at Princes Town, had made the eight mile journey to San Fernando to clean the grave of his sister’s mother-in-law who had died several years earlier.

‘This is a normal thing for this time of the year,” Roopnarine said while putting the finishing coats of paint on the tomb under a blazing noonday sun.

“I don’t light up but my sister will come and light up the grave, I just do all the cleaning,” Roopnarine, sweat dripping down his brow, said.

Meanwhile, another man, who sat pulling weeds at the site of a recent grave, said the grave belonged to an uncle who had recently passed away.

“It is nothing, we just doing our part,” the man, who did not wish to give his name, said.

Meanwhile, a group of young entrepreneurs, who could be seen liming close to one of the cemeteries entrances, were heard asking persons entering the cemeteries whether they wanted graves cleaned for a price.