Letter to the Editor: Cemetery not a dog park

Everyone has lost someone special. It might be a father, a mother, a child, a grandparent, a niece, a nephew or a friend. Everyone knows someone who now rests in a cemetery. Cemeteries are sacred places that home the ones we love after they are taken from this world. When someone dies, there is a huge hole in the hearts of those who loved them. The last thing that a family does for their loved one, is to place them in a very special and expensive custom-made box that depicts their taste and life, and the location of that very special box is marked with a stone. Those stones, while of all shapes and sizes, are the final thing that one’s family can do for their loved one.

Can you imagine the pain and heartbreak that those family members feel when they watch those very headstones being urinated on and walked across by people and their dogs? Cemeteries are not dog parks. When you enter a cemetery, remember that it is a sacred place. This is a place where tranquility and quiet are desired and expected and everyday activities of life should be suspended, which includes letting your dog use it as a place to potty. Please be sympathetic, don’t litter, don’t steal the flowers, don’t walk over the graves, drive on the roadways, be respectful, don’t touch the monuments or headstones, and remember that each and every one of those headstones marks the place of someone very special. Thank you.

Jill Connolly

Odessa