Brenda Mullaly and Margot Amiro have been given until April 1 to remove memorial items, silk flowers and other embellishments from the plots of their loved ones.

“It’s sad because people grieve in different ways and to just go out and look at a heap of gravel seems like we had forgotten him,” said Mullaly of her father whom she buried last summer.

She says her seven-year-old daughter would visit with her to arrange the flowers and tell her grampie to look at her as she was doing it.

Mullaly says she never received regulations for burial from the cemetery committee.

Several months after she embellished the plot she received a notice telling her the items were hindering the caretakers and to remove everything within a month.

“I called the caretakers and they reassured me that it was no trouble. ‘It’s not us,’ they said.”

She then contacted CBC news, which aired a report on the situation. The parish extended the deadline for removal to spring but the bereaved daughter found the handling of the issue anything but delicate.

“They told me that if I don’t remove it they will bring it in a garbage bag and put it on the doorstep,” she said.

Margot Amiro buried her son John five years ago, a few plots from Mullaly’s. She’s been decorating the site since then.

“To see my son’s grave with flowers comforts me,” said Amiro.

“Nobody has ever said a word.”

She, like all of the other plot holders, also received a copy of the regulations last fall.

Amiro says she called a cemetery boardmember who upset her even more.

“She asked me why am I getting so upset about it? My boy is rotting in the ground. So what is the good of having flowers?”

“If she should put my flowers on my doorstep on the first of April, God help her,” added Amiro, who is accustomed to decorating a gravesite in the European way.

The women believe this is a case of discrimination because they are not from the area.

“It disgusts me that much, I even feel like moving away from here,” said Mullaly.

Cemetery board member Gladys Amirault says the rules are clear.

“Every cemetery and parish has rules. If they are not allowed to put all sorts of little items on the graves then those are the rules. I don’t see the problem.

“The rules were put into place in 1999. Margot knows the rules, but she’s from Germany, and this is what the Germans do. Brenda is from Newfoundland and what she did is what they do in Newfoundland. Well, this is not Newfoundland and this is not Germany and we have our own rules and every parish has the same rules and no one else seems to have problems except us,” she said.

Amirault says cemetery regulations were mailed to Mullaly’s father’s company as per the family’s request at the time of burial.

Flowers are only allowed at the time of burial. Once they have faded and died they must be removed. Saddles of real flowers are permissible on top of the monuments until they have faded.

“The parish wants everything green. So it can be mowed,” said Amirault.

She denies that any boardmember told the women their decorations would be deposited on their steps in a garbage bag.

“No, no, no. Nobody ever said that. What we told them was that if they are still there, we would take everything out and bring them back to her.”

Father Gerald LeBlanc, the priest overseeing the cemetery says most parish cemeteries have their own bylaws that relate to the upkeep of the their graveyard.

“We tried to get a common policy for the diocese but left details to the discretion of all parishes. Because of the cost of maintenance, and especially for the mowing season, most parishes invite those who have placed flowers or other articles on their grave to remove them in the spring with the option of placing them back when the mowing season is over.

“Usually in November you see the Veteran wreaths or crosses placed on the grave as well as Christmas wreaths. These are taken off by the families in the spring. Whatever flowers are placed on the monuments or on the foundations can remain there year round unless they are faded,” he said.