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AIBU?

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Original poster

Deep sigh... Roadside 'Tributes'

288 replies

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 04/03/2011 13:09

Am I very unreasonable to hate them?

We have a road that I travel on quite often, it's locally known as 'Death Valley'. It's been the site of several fatal accidents, namely because people overtake and misjudge the traffic in the opposite direction.

Anyway... some of the lampposts are absolutely festooned with dirty and torn teddies and dead flowers and banners and goodness knows what... until mothers' day, birthday, Christmas or some other memorable day results in even more stuff being added. Some of these accidents happened five years ago or more. Confused

This isn't common all over the UK, just in spots. I've often seen a cross on a verge, with perhaps a small wreath but nothing on the scale of 'Death Valley'.

I drove past one of the 'festooners' today, putting some garish finishing touches to a memorial picture (the size of a dartboard), with fairy lights. She was darting across the road and I think it's a matter of time before she becomes part of the tribute scene.

It goes without saying that I feel dreadfully sad for the bereaved families but WHY exactly, does the accident site have to become an impromptu display of ostentatious grief? I really hate it...

OP posts:
thefirstMrsDeVere · 05/03/2011 21:00

I didnt understand them before either. I didnt hate them but I have to be honest and say I didnt 'get' them.

I do now.

I know they dont look nice when its raining and the flowers are wilting and the celophane is brown and ripped. But you have to look beyond that. Into what they represent for the people who loved that person.

Hand on heart - does anyone really dislike them so much that they would deny a family this comfort - even if you really dont understand why it brings comfort?

If you think they are ugly it doesnt make you heartless IMO. Its an opinion. But to ban them for asthetic reasons is.

SpeedyGonzalez · 05/03/2011 21:02

You missed the point I was making earlier, OP, which is why you found it confusing. Sigh. I was showing how absurd and wrong it is to try and prescribe how someone should and shouldn't grieve.

MrsDevere, as always the voice of heart and reason.

claig · 05/03/2011 21:05

'Hand on heart - does anyone really dislike them so much that they would deny a family this comfort'

some of these councils are trying to stop all tributes after 30 days. The parents have called them "heartless", and the parents are right. Thousands of parents have joined a protest in Bolton against these council executives. I don't think they are fit to serve the public in a council position.

Desiderata · 05/03/2011 21:11

Well, you certainly can't ban shows of grief, but I think it's a product of our FB/Twitter generation that all things must be on public display, even death.

Sudden death, in particular, can arouse certain emotional responses .. but I have to say that, having lost at least five young friends in road accidents when I was a nipper, we would not have resorted to roadside memorials. It would have been considered as bad taste, at a time when dignity means everything.

femalevictormeldrew · 05/03/2011 21:18

Almost 16 years ago I was horrendously injured in a car accident, and my friend died on the road beside me, while we were out to celebrate her 17th birthday. Every Christmas and anniversary I go to the place and leave flowers, as do her parents and twin sister. My grief would never touch what they have gone through, but I find it a comfort (for want of a better word. I can't explain it really to myself, and realise I am not doing a good job of putting it into words either. It "consoles" me I suppose is what I am trying to say, to feel that I still remember it and would like my friend to know that I still remember. And I suppose thats why her family do it too.

So YABU

thefirstMrsDeVere · 05/03/2011 21:18

Bad taste by whose standards?

My DD's ashes are in a pink and silver urn sat in a pink alcove painted with glitter.

She was the most dignified human being I have ever known.

Its not up to others to say what is good or bad taste when someone loses a loved one.

claig · 05/03/2011 21:23

not a single teddy bear or flower or football shirt or any other memento is in "bad taste", because they all come from the heart, they all represent love, and love is never tacky come rain or shine. Even if the flowers wither, and the cellophane turns brown, they are still never tacky or in bad taste. The only bad taste is by those who don't recognise this.

Original poster
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/03/2011 21:26

MrsDeVere... I am very sorry to read about your DD. I can't think what that must have been like and I don't know how I would feel in your position. Your posts really struck a chord.

My OP was about a specific area close by, and a specific tribute. There are others on the same stretch of road that are no distraction whatsoever, requiring no maintenance so no dangerous dodging of traffic. This thread has moved on from my initial comments regarding this tribute to all tributes.

I will say that regardless of how inappropriate and dangerous I think the tribute I was initially referring to is, I'd never complain about it,it's just the subject of a series of comments here.

OP posts:
Desiderata · 05/03/2011 21:26

No, it isn't anyone's place to dictate what is in good or bad taste. I'm addressing the specific of the OP, not a graveside site, but the site where someone died.

I lost my fiance in a roadside accident when I was seventeen. I survived and he died. That was nearly thirty years ago, and in those days, it wouldn't have occurred to leave flowers at the site.

Times have moved on. The grief is still the same, but the manner in which people commemorate it has changed.

Nowadays, people seem to want to focus on the site itself. When I was younger, people wanted to forget it.

moondog · 05/03/2011 21:52

Bubbub, I meant you in a general sense,not you personally.
How telling that you assume I am talking about you.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 05/03/2011 22:05

I dont agree desiderata I dont think the nature of parental grief (I cant comment on your grief as a partner because I havent experienced that) has changed.

I have a collection of writings by parents spanning centuries. Their words echo my feelings.

"That was and still is the great disaster of my life ? that lovely, lovely little boy . . . There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were before." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
is just one example that I happen to have close to hand.

I think that parents twenty, thirty, fourty years ago didnt want to forget it. I think they wanted to do the things that parents do today. They felt they couldnt because it would be frowned upon. However, if we had fast cars in the 1800s I think parents would have felt able to do exactly what they do now. Death was acknowledge then, grief was allowed and expected.

You are not even entitled to time off work after your child dies now. Compassionate leave is up to the discretion of your line manager and for most people it amounts to a few days.

So much for 'the Diana effect' hey?

landrover · 05/03/2011 22:29

I would like to say, there are much more important things to worry about than what grieving people do, when they are at their lowest and need our support and sympathy, what is the world coming to when we cant have a little respect?

Ponders · 05/03/2011 22:37

moondog, you said

"Bubbub, so it seems your chief concern is how the 'tributes' make you feel then?"

what did you mean by you, if not the individual you were addressing???

if you meant "people in general", it would have been more helpful to say that Hmm

Emmanana · 05/03/2011 22:47

There was a young lad stabbed outside a supermarket in South London a year or so ago, and also 3/4 weeks ago a young guy was killed after his attackers followed him on to the bus. In both places there were many tributes, flowers, cards. Outside the shop and by the bus stop. There were a lot of young people placing tributes there. Maybe teens would feel awkward about going to the family home with flowers? For a few weeks after each death there were always a few youngsters there, talking with each other.

Maybe teens don't feel comfortable approaching the lads families? And if the reality of what has happened and the subsequent visible reminder stops just one person carrying a knife or weapon, then that is a good thing.

Original poster
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/03/2011 22:48

I make that mistake myself, I say 'you', meaning people in general, thinking that it's quite clear when it obviously isn't.

OP posts:
Ponders · 05/03/2011 22:53

of course "you" often means you in the general sense, but when it's emphasised in writing as you, who wouldn't assume it meant them personally?

patiencenotmyvirtue · 05/03/2011 23:15

I love the posters who can assign "tacky' to the displays of grief.

Presumably the towering monuments of shrouded urns and and grieving angels in cemeteries are OK. Not tacky or ostentatious, eh?

That's what some people did then, this is what some do now.

Get over it, OP.

Emmanana · 05/03/2011 23:27

I agree with those who say 'each to their own. There is no one on earth who can totally understand how a death affects any individual.
Next time you pass such a memorial, instead of being irked by it, get into the habit of thinking positively instead. Try to think of something you have to be thankful for, your child, your DH/DW etc.
If you don't like it, you don't have to look.

Original poster
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 06/03/2011 00:19

patiencenotmyvirtue... The OP wasn't about cemeteries but about roadside shrines. I realise that it's convenient to your post to twist the facts but it doesn't wash. Cemeteries and memorial gardens are different and the only restriction there is placed by the local authority on what you can have.

Emmanana... I've taken on board some of the points raised on this thread and am genuinely sad for the people who have lost loved ones. I still don't agree with large, unkempt roadside displays. I also take issue with the phrase "if you don't like it, don't look"; so often quipped but never adhered to by anybody.

OP posts:
SpeedyGonzalez · 06/03/2011 01:08

When someone dies, especially in shocking circumstances, I should think the grievers' last concern ought to be whether their behaviour, to others' eyes, is "dignified". How very stiff upper lipped.

fastedwina · 06/03/2011 01:13

I really don't care what they look like. When i go by some kind of remembrance I feel saddened and then think - thank god, it isn't me feeling that pain. The people that feel the need to do this are in such pain that I really don't want to judge them.

Mssoul · 06/03/2011 01:21

My dear friend died last weekend and I laid flowers at the scene along with some others who were close to the person too. It helped us. So YABU and I hope you never have to remember a loved one in this way.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 06/03/2011 01:37

FFS do you really want to live in a world cluttered with ripped cellophane, mouldering teddies, rain-drenched photographs and compost? People die in hospitals, workplaces, private homes, restaurants, stations - should everywhere be made available for these piles of commemorative stuff?
Death and bereavement are part of life, but that doesn't mean the trappings have to be all of life and everywhere. There simply isn't room either in physical space or in people's heads. That's why we have designated zones (called 'cemetaries' or indeed 'gardens of remembrance') for people to mourn and remember their loved ones. But life goes on and there is more to life than being expected to mourn everyone else's dead all the time and all over the place.

AlfalfaMum · 06/03/2011 01:53

yabu

I'm amazed there are people who see fit to get snobby about grief, bandying about words like 'tacky' and 'chavvy'. Get over yourselves Hmm

There's a canal near me, where a couple died during the recent cold snap; they were sitting beside the canal and froze to death (drug users :(). The woman had two children, a few days after there was a flower tribute saying 'MUM' left where they died. So sad.
Anyone want to go and tell those children how 'tacky' their 'bad taste' is?

cashmeregoat · 06/03/2011 02:13

YANBU