Sad News About the Grave

My father was buried in cemetery of the church where he was christened and married 37 years ago. The plot was made for two and the headstone engraved like a book had two pages, one for each of my parents. when my nan died in 1996 mum buried her ashes in the same grave and she had her own plaque. When mum passed her ashes were buried there and her name added to the stone, at the same time we added our younger brother's name too. For the last 37 years the grave has been well tended, it's always been tidy even though it's been through many changes. Once it had a rose bush but we removed it when it grew a little too big. It's always had a border, at first it was a fence but later we replaced it with a stone kerb. After nan's plaque was put down we decided to fill in the grave with white pebbles.
Since mum and Sim died there have been many ornaments placed on the grave, gifts, teddies, plants, toys, all sorts. My aunt and myself are the main tenders of the grave now and we have had to remove items frequently because we wanted to keep it looking respectable. It always has fresh flowers and we keep it clean. We have even regularly painted the kerb.
However, according to cemetery regulations set out by Birmingham City Council and diocese of Birmingham none of this is actually allowed. All that is allowed is the headstone, the plaque and a reasonable amount of fresh flowers. (fake flowers are disallowed) We were given a warning last September that everything else would be removed and we have pleaded with them since then. Sadly they went ahead and removed everything leaving nothing but a mound of earth. We were told we could replace the pebbles with grass, so we did. I went to see it today for the first time and it broke my heart. For so many years that grave has been the place where we have gone to mourn, pray or just talk to our loved ones. Loved ones that once tended the grave themselves are now buried there. It all seems so unfair, so wrong, but rules are rules and we have got away with having it just how we wanted for too long.

The grave, how it is today, how it was before, how it was 37 years ago