A woman wrote to tell me of the rude intrusions she has to endure when visiting her son’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery. People have asked her directions to the bathroom as she sits by the grave. People have taken her picture. People have offered unsolicited commentaries on the war that claimed her son. She seeks a private time to come to terms with her loss, but some will not let her have it.

Cemeteries are the places where we all have a rightful claim on one thing — to be left alone with our thoughts and memories. We assume a mutual respect for grief. In the cemetery, the man who sets up a folding chair and sits by the grave of his late wife, perhaps talking softly of small pieces of their life together, does not need anyone’s company. And he doesn’t need that cute little dog of yours running up with an unwanted helping of warm fuzzies.

When we visit, we hope that the place where our families are buried will be treated with respect and maintained with some sense of dignity. We hope that the names carved in stone will be easily read, that nothing will have to be pushed aside or pulled up. We hope that we won’t have to reach for car keys to scrape debris from the letters.

When I visited North Burial Ground in Providence with Jeanne McGinnis and her son, Ray, there was a Pepsi cup and a water bottle in the grass near the family gravesite. The grass and weeds grew tall. Some of the old gravestones lay on their sides or were propped against other stones.

Actually, if you just drive by North Burial Ground on North Main Street or Branch Avenue you will think it is well maintained. At the entrance and around the edges, everything is clipped and weeded. The American flags on veterans’ graves near the main gate snap smartly in the breeze.

But drive in and keep going and there are contrasts. There are gravestones obscured by grass and weeds, some broken from their bases and lying flat. There is trash.

“It’s heartbreaking to see the condition of the final resting places,” says Ray McGinnis, who recently moved back to Rhode Island after working in Florida.

Clearly, some of the problems are with the people who treat the vast expanse of the cemetery as their personal playground. There is no way to regulate entrance. It is a large public space. People can easily disappear into it.

People get their exercise in the cemetery. They walk their dogs. Some show themselves complete pigs with no understanding of the common ground. They drop their cups and bottles and wrappers in the grass. There is probably more of that behavior now than there used to be.

Jeanne McGinnis, who lives in Lincoln, visits the spot where the names of great-grandparents, a great-aunt, grandparents and an uncle are carved into both sides of a single family stone.

“It really upsets me,” she says of the condition of the cemetery around the graves. “I know they can’t stop people from walking in. But it’s supposed to be hallowed ground. It should be taken care of.”

It is a measure of things. These acres in the city are filled with personal memories and rich pieces of history. There are graves that are centuries old. It is a fine place to walk and think and maybe gain a little perspective.

But there is only so much money for upkeep in very hard times. Perpetual care might not be perpetual.

A place well kept on the outside but not so well on the inside seems a symbol for much of what is happening in places other than North Burial Ground.

bkerr@projo.com