R: Cemeteries are for the Living

Citizens of the United States for the most part do not live on land their families have owned for hundreds of years. They largely do not share the practice sharing the home with multiple generations. Yet they do subscribe to the common conviction that roots matter and that ancestry ought to be recognized. Cemeteries are physical manifestations of this belief. Yet do these resting places belong to those who rest there, or do they have meaning only because of those who visit the graves?

In a larger sense, do burial practices celebrate the dead, or do they exist as a way to bind together the living? Should cemeteries be spaces used as public places, or should the focus rest on private celebration of the dead?