Memorials

[david_carnell]

Whatever happened to private grief? Why the need for public displays of sentimentality? It's all a bit (and the Diana stuff was the prime example).... mawkish.

When a loved one dies, no one, including myself, questions the need for grieving and/or celebrating their life. But why can't this be done in the same manner as 99% of other deaths - with quiet, dignified and private reserve? The only exception I can see are those who died in large groups, such as the touching memorial that Woof referred to. But these roadside memorials (for it is traffic related deaths that appear to be the predominant feature) seem to be being given some special status that I'm not sure they warrant.

I'm not trying to be deliberately provocative, nor do I wish to cause offence to anyone who has participated in this sort of thing, but frankly I'd rather they didn't exist.

[Brendan]

With respect. Who are you to make a judgement on how someone else expresses their grief?

Even if you can identified and have seen a loved one?s face split in half as they bleed their last onto rancid asphalt it is still not for anyone to say how someone else should express their reaction to the experience.

[Bellenden Belle]

I think they are mawkish and almost bring out an element of rubbernecking in people; but I can also see where there is a sudden death, they provide the opportunity for people to respond in an immediate way.

Grief is private, but when young lives are involved, how do classmates/ friends come to terms with losing someone. I think many people find themselves already prepared/ expectant when they lose a loved one - but that's not the case in roadside deaths. And a simple act of leaving a message in a significant place perhaps offers a ritual that can be helpful.

But I agree they need to be taken down within a certain period - a month at the very most. Leaving flowers to rot and die with tattered bits of paper, where one can no longer even make out a message, just re-inforces the bleakness of the event in my opinion.

What I personally can't stand is public grieving over strangers - the Dianas and the Jacksons of the world.

[Brendan]

Bellenden Belle Wrote:

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> Grief is private

Not necessarily. Perhaps to you and in your culture but (taking out of the equation the plastic melodrama peddled by the media when celebrities die) shared grief and public displays of grief are very normal to many people.

> Leaving flowers to rot and die with tattered bits of

> paper, where one can no longer even make out a

> message, just re-inforces the bleakness of the

> event in my opinion.

That could be all the more reason to allow it to happen. Violent premature death isn?t a pretty thing and has a lot more to do with decay and mess than the polished coffins and black suits we dress it up in.

[david_carnell]

Brendan Wrote:

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> With respect. Who are you to make a judgement on

> how someone else expresses their grief?

I'm no-one Brendan, just one of a number of people who feels uncomfortable with the manner in which death is becoming an exercise in showing how many bouquets of flowers can be put on display in a public place. I'm not attempting to outlaw this activity or impose my beliefs, merely trying to dissuade people from continuing with it and outline my reasons. I think I'm entitled to that since the streets on which they are placed are as much mine as anyone's.

And I'm afraid the whole "well it's a cultural thing...." doesn't wash. We don't get paid mourners lining the streets and only now is the first Hindu pyre being granted permission in remote Northumberland - it'll be a while before it's seen on Peckham Rye. It has nothing to do with "culture" and more to do with the modern phenomena of being "seen" to mourn the deceased in public.

And whilst Bellenden Belle questions how else school children could expect to pay their respects to dead classmates, gathering around the crash-site (or whatever) strikes me as just a little macabre. Surely, a memorial inside the school would be a more suitable location?

[Roll Deep]

I'm not really that fussed to be honest as they're not too different from seeing someones name etched into a park bench. It's when the bereaved appear to go out of their way to 'guilt' you into feeling sympathy by leaving things like teddy bears that simply serve to say: "A child died here. Shame on you if you don't share our grief". Which is quite petty to be honest.

[Brendan]

Which is precisely what I was saying in my first post David. We can?t just decide to contrive reasons to prohibit something just because we don?t like it or it makes us ?feel uncomfortable?. As long as it isn?t causing harm that street is as much someone else?s as it is yours or mine.

And I wasn?t trying to argue that it is a cultural issue either. Just pointing out that tributes and shrines are not an unknown phenomenon in our culture or anyone else?s. They are a natural human expression that has always manifested itself in different ways since before we had even evolved into homosapiens.

[Brendan]

Roll Deep Wrote:

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> It's when the bereaved appear

> to go out of their way to 'guilt' you into feeling

> sympathy by leaving things like teddy bears that

> simply serve to say: "A child died here. Shame on

> you if you don't share our grief". Which is quite

> petty to be honest.

Or perhaps the message could be interpreted as: ?A child died here. Shame on you if you continue to use the road with the self centered contempt for the safety of others that you currently do?

A message that most road users, especially bus and truck drivers, would do well to bloody well listen to.

[giggirl]

If you invited someone to your house for dinner and they pegged it over the pudding, would you allow your home to be a shrine for grieving friends and relatives? Maybe put some fake flowers in a corner of the dining room. For how long?

[david_carnell]

"Unless it causes harm"? You mean besides an aesthetic blot? I don't want to sound cold hearted but that's a pretty weak argument for tolerating such a thing. But I'm resigned to it continuing, tbh. No-one's going to ban it, and I'd be uncomfortable if they did, but there's a limit to acceptable behaviour in public beyond not causing harm. The fact that people have a "right" to do so doesn't make it okay in my eyes.

I'm all for tributes and shrines. It's called a graveyard (or remembrance garden or whatever) and it belongs there. Not on the street. Pay your respects there. Someone previously mentioned allowing these shrines to remain until the dead are buried - a most sensible suggestion and compromise I would have thought.

And nor should they be treated as some sort of public information film warning drivers that their vehicle has the possibility to kill. A death should be treated with respect, not as a billboard.

[Brendan]

Well personally I don?t like them they remind me too vividly of the trauma and randomness of road deaths. But they aren?t about me they are someone else?s expression of grief or loss. Humans are compelled to make these gestures when we grieve even though we are all too aware of their ultimate futility.

So it is both insensitive and impolite to try to make up rules about how people should grieve. Unless, as I said before, they are causing a specific problem.

[PeckhamRose]

But when we ride past the flowers at the lamppost, we do not know who it is who died.

We just know that someone died here, either as a result of a vehicle going too fast or as a result of someone walking in front of the traffic and not looking where they were going.

Either way, it reminds us all to be careful. Someone died there. It doesn't matter who. We won't/can't know who it was. So it is not about the person as such, but more about the human being / us, and how easy it is to stop 'being'.

Anyway, when I ride past them I always catch myself thinking about my riding skills and pay even more attention.

[woofmarkthedog]

Roll Deep Wrote:

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> I'm not really that fussed to be honest as they're

> not too different from seeing someones name etched

> into a park bench. It's when the bereaved appear

> to go out of their way to 'guilt' you into feeling

> sympathy by leaving things like teddy bears that

> simply serve to say: "A child died here. Shame on

> you if you don't share our grief". Which is quite

> petty to be honest.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I

see your point however, when a family loose a child the shock is one of the hardest to fathom I'd say.

It is I think ( speaking as a parent) the expectation of guiding children to the point of letting them go into the world, becoming responsible adults.

When a tragic accident involving a child results in a life cut short, it's hard to express the deep feelings people have, the cutting short of expectations.

So I'm not surprised to see memorials the way we do, teddies & toys are possibly a way for them to visualize their grief.

Ask any parent their worst nightmare & loosing a child is pretty well tops.

Keeping a stiff upper lip, who's that for then ?

Plus we live in a massive culturally diverse society, so we get to see how others express them selves

I"m fine with that

W**F

[david_carnell]

I'm not making up rules, Brendan. Nor am I arguing that humans do not need to grieve.

I'm just stating my aversion to them. For different reasons to you but an aversion nonetheless.

I'm not advocating a ban or telling people they can't do so.

I'd just rather they didn't.

That's all.

[Huggers]

If it wasnt for the plastic around the flowers, they would disintergrate/wither naturally;pollen and petals blow away ...and more poignantly represent the fragility of life...or is that a health and safety issue?

[brum]

giggirl Wrote:

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> If you invited someone to your house for dinner

> and they pegged it over the pudding, would you

> allow your home to be a shrine for grieving

> friends and relatives? Maybe put some fake

> flowers in a corner of the dining room. For how

> long?

*must decline puddings offered by giggirl*

[giggirl]

I do a lovely pudding. Apple Charlotte, floating islands, Eton mess.

[Roll Deep]

Arsenic fluff.

[david_carnell]

The salmon mousse!

[????]

Angel...of death....Delight

[Brendan]

david_carnell Wrote:

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> I'm not advocating a ban or telling people they

> can't do so.

Then what the hell are you arguing with me for dammit?

[david_carnell]

Because I disagree with you.

And flowers.

[giggirl]

OMG Alexander McQueen is dead at 40. A great talent snuffed out. I shall style myself as my own personal memorial tomorrow - McQueen head to foot.

[ruffers]

Brendan Wrote:

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>... Humans are

> compelled to make these gestures when we grieve

> even though we are all too aware of their ultimate

> futility. .

What I find interesting is that British humans at least, can't speak for the rest, didn't appear to be compelled to make these particular gestures until relatively recently.

[Brendan]

Maybe not in these particular type of circumstance but then again road deaths are only something that have been a staple of life for the last 60 years or so. But crosses, shrines, plaques etc. are all part of the same phenomenon.

Anthropologically speaking.