Graves

There are many social safety nets in place to keep Norwegians from ever becoming homeless.  My husband said once it’s as if the whole country is still living at home with their parents.  They don’t have to plan for their future because retirement is guaranteed at 90% of their pay.  If they get sick or disabled the government takes care of their medical expenses and sends them a hefty disability payment while they are off work.  If they lose their job, there are always retraining options, paid for by the local county.  Any kind of financial disaster a person could face in their lifetime comes with some kind of safeguard.  Homelessness is actually illegal in Norway, so everyone is provided a place to live.  But once a person dies, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Purchasing a burial plot is not an option.  Cemetery land is for lease only.  Part of the cost of death is paying the lease for twenty years on the land where the body will lay.  The price can vary of course, but around our part of Norway it’s about $40 a year and leases are paid in twenty-year chunks.  As long as someone makes the next payment twenty years down the road, the grave remains untouched, but once the money stream stops, they are literally goners. 

This system came about because of how little soil there is to bury people and cremation has not yet caught on in Norway.  The churches and counties own all the cemeteries and while the county may take good care of the locals while they are living, they drop them like a hot potato once they are dead. This tidbit of information answered a big mystery as to why I could never find old graves of ancestors in Norway.

The appearance of the graveyard is also very important to Norwegians.  Each headstone has a little mini garden patch in front of it and every year someone needs to plant fresh flowers and water them regularly or the grave will go away.  The county keeps the grass mowed, but they don’t mess with people’s graves, unless it’s to remove them.

It is possible to pay extra each year for employees to water the plants, however, if no descendants live nearby.  And there’s an additional cost to actually buy and plant the flowers, if it’s not possible to do it personally.  In Oslo, for example, it costs about $120 a year for the watering, and another $150 to plant the flowers.  No plastic flowers are ever allowed anywhere in Norway.

When the grave goes into disarray or the lease doesn’t get renewed, then the body get removed and “disposed of” and the plot is leased once again.

I find it ironic that Norwegians are the recipients of many financial benefits from the government during their lifetime in order to keep them in house and home, but after they’re dead, they must pay out for all eternity for their new place.