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A roadside memorial means that someone's life is over. Their loved ones will never be able to see or speak with them again. They are gone & there is a horrible void.
Those of you who are so focused on how terrible these memorials are, should get a life...before, you, too, don't have one.
that is why there are cemeteries where you buy the plot to erect a memorial.
We had some kids drag racing on a back road and the worst happened. Four kids died. There was a memorial up, and six months later the whole thing was down. But someone keeps putting up a red bow on the fence. I think about those kids every time I go past the bow.
And that's not bad.
BUT. Grief is something to get through, to work through. (Note -- did not say get over, you don't ever get over it) I don't see how this constant reminder helps with it. Like the people who have stickers made for their car, or tattoos... how to do you work through the grief with a constant reminder that's so in your face?
And if it were on my property, I would get mighty tired of dealing with the people who come to tend it... and then what if they didn't? I got to see this when we found an ancestor's graveyard on private property. We called to make sure it was okay to visit and the owner thanked us, but said -- by law we aren't allowed to stop people from coming to visit the cemetery. But, we won't be here when you come. And we don't know anything about the people buried there... so it seems that a lot of people assume a relationship that doesn't exist in these cases. (by the way -- the family cemetery was immaculately kept, so the owners must care a little)
I like to think I would be kind about a memorial, but I would be realistic. When the furor had died down, and it always does, I would remove it. I wouldn't make a big thing out of it. And if people come back and put up something on the anniversary... I'd take it down in a month.
(3rd paragraph about grief)........Yes !
Back in the 80's a TV station interviewed homeless vets.
One vet wearing a fatigue jacket said................" sometimes I feel I am improving but then I look at this picture and I regress"
He took a crumpled 20 year old picture of a little girl his unit had accidently killed in Vietnam. Stared at it until he started shaking.
Maybe it is time to put that picture in a locker so you aren't brining it out constantly to stare at.
A roadside memorial means that someone's life is over. Their loved ones will never be able to see or speak with them again. They are gone & there is a horrible void.
Those of you who are so focused on how terrible these memorials are, should get a life...before, you, too, don't have one.
That is the whole point, life does go on and I hope I never have the need for long drawn out unnecessary attention, dead or alive. A memorial is like many other things, right time, right place, after that things can and do become a driving distraction, not maintained, and too many things placed on the side of the road or even a grave in a graveyard can become unattended which goes from honorable to trashy.
Not much honor for the dead in trashy is there?
Then IGNORE it...look at the road you are driving on, which is where your eyes should be, anyway.
Even when there is a large display that is unkept or maintaned? I bet even your eyes would wander to the big display and not be looking where they should be on the road you are getting ready to pull out on.
I have heard that perfection is tough to maintain though.......
A roadside memorial means that someone's life is over. Their loved ones will never be able to see or speak with them again. They are gone & there is a horrible void.
Those of you who are so focused on how terrible these memorials are, should get a life...before, you, too, don't have one.
If you are against memorials, go to Washington, DC & tear down the Vietnam Memorial, the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Iwo Jiwa Memorial, etc., etc. See how that works out for you.
And a place to erect a monument in remembrance of the person, hence the presence of headstones and mausoleums. If body disposal was the sole purpose of a cemetery, there would be none of that; bodies can be disposed of quite well by just throwing them into an unmarked pit and filling in the hole.
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If you are against memorials, go to Washington, DC & tear down the Vietnam Memorial, the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Iwo Jiwa Memorial, etc., etc. See how that works out for you.
Those are PUBLIC memorials, to commemorate PUBLIC tragedies, not the hijacking of a public space by a single family or small group of families for commemoration of a purely personal grief. There is a difference.
Then what purpose does the roadside monument serve? You can't have it both ways: it can't both be seen and ignored by the general public simultaneously.
That is such crap. Do you look at EVERY SINGLE THING on the roadside? If you do, you should not be driving. The creator of the memorial does it to assuage their grief. It helps THEM! THEY see it. YOU don't need to look.
That is such crap. Do you look at EVERY SINGLE THING on the roadside? If you do, you should not be driving. The creator of the memorial does it to assuage their grief. It helps THEM! THEY see it. YOU don't need to look.
We are swinging into off topic territory but where did you learn to drive that you weren't told to be aware of the roadsides and their potential hazards, such as inattentive children, car doors opening, animals darting into the road, etc.?
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