We need to stop the culture of "floral tributes"

[MangoMangoMango]

Just watching the news about the horrific murder of the girl in Boston. Woman being interviewed in front of a mass of tributes - flowers, teddies, balloons. At least 30 feet across, filling the pavement.

I totally get that locals who are shocked and upset by the news want to demonstrate that in some way. But flowers wrapped in plastic and helium balloons are just litter. In a few days someone will have the job of clearing it all up and binning it. Such a waste of money and resources.

We need to move the culture away from this - but into what. I'm not sure.

You should see my replies from MNHQ from 'Philip'.
Hiya Phil!
What a joke! Maybe the OP's Philip's mate.
Honestly, MNHQ should hang their heads in shame.
As another poster said, take it to Reddit, OP.
She has a name. And if Lilia were your own child, what would you think, reading this thread, reading your opening paragraph where you kick off your green agenda with a child's brutal murder? The press pages are still running hot, for fuck's sake.

Thinking back to Diana's death, as well as the floral tributes many places had books of condolence where people could write a message. I remember there being one at our local town hall which I wrote in. I have wondered what happened to those books and if anyone ever read the messages. If it became general practice to do something like that then the book could eventually go to the family which might be of more comfort than flowers which die after a few days.

I've also had a cheery reply from 'Phillip what an absolute PlANK Phillip.is!

I really cannot believe admin havent pulled this tasteless thread.

Absolutely right.

I do agree about the waste of plastic etc however my main hope is that the tribute gave a very small bit of comfort to the parents of this poor little girl.

Have you considered that perhaps it’s bringing some comfort to Lilia’s (that was her name, the way) parents to read how loved their little girl was?

I sincerely hope it does.
If it was my child, I think mounds of decaying flowers from well meaning strangers would be upsetting and intrusive.

A child has been murdered. Is this really that platform to pontificate about the effects on the environment? Shame on you.

Yes a public book of condolence in a local hall/ community centre would be better. And yes it could be given to the family as a lasting memory of how people expressed their sorrow.
Flowers don't last.

If it was my child, I think mounds of decaying flowers from well meaning strangers would be upsetting and intrusive.

Maybe yes, you would find it upsetting... then again, maybe not. How can we possibly know? Let's hope none of us find out how we'd respond to the outpouring of grief by a local community. Let's hope we're never in that number.
I do know one thing: I'd rather see a mound of decaying flowers from well-meaning strangers than see a thread about the atrocity of cellophane started on the back of my child's brutal murder by some tunnel vision poster whose emotional blinders appear to be gorilla glued.

This is a shocking read. We had the same tragedy in my city with a 12 year old girl last year and the masses of support in forms such as flowers, teddies etc were a huge comfort in the community. Not only this but people in fact did and have since been advocating for education, regulation and safety around knives. Making a thread about a little girl's brutal death and using it to criticise the ways in which people mourn is despicable.

I care deeply about the planet and the resources we use. However, I find your post very disturbing; where is your compassion and humanity?

A brutal and tragic murder was committed and the community is in shock and is grieving. They are trying to support the family of this poor girl. Let them grieve.

I would be more shocked if there wasn't any demonstration/ expressions of grief.

They are often distracting.
Yes they may serve as a temporary reminder but it's becoming the 'norm' now.

There is a very busy road near me where the family of a loved one , who died almost thirty years ago, had a plaque , photo and permanent vase fitted to a wall.

The council kept removing it but the family kept replacing it. The council gave up. The structure is still there but flowers only appear sporadically.
It's faded and looks the worse for wear.

I'm not convinced it's an effective memorial and if all who suffered a bereavement that took place outside of home or hospital, took it upon themselves to put these very sad reminders up at the place of death, they would be all over the place.
That's what a graveyard /plaque at crematorium is for.

we have two long term shrines near us. One is at the end of my road, where a little girl we knew was killed by a bus.
There are teddies tied to the lampost. After she died the (many) tributes were all removed after 3 weeks by the council, that felt right, we had put flowers on that pile. But there are always teddies tied to that lampost now. They look so sad, tired dirty, faded teddies. they are not a good memory of that lovely girl. I wish I was bold enough to quietly remove them. But I wouldn't willingliy give even a moments upset to that family.

There is another one on the side of a dual carriageway, it has been over 10 years and someone still maintins that, there is a football shirt and an England flag, replaced when it gets too battered. Again it mostly looks sad. I wish that there was a way to make a memorial somewhere for that family. Dirty flag at the side of a dual carriageway seems so sad.

I can say that the pile of teddies and flowers at the end of our road were quite important to the family and community. It was a way of expressing love to them, especially from those of us who didn't know her well enough to speak to (family from our school)

But these initial outpouringsare often removed by the council in a timely way, in our case 3 weeks. Long enough to be a memorial, last until after the funeral, but before they look too bad.
It is actually the ongoing dribs and drabs of rotten flowers and teddies whichis worse

What an absolutely awful thread! Jesus Wept! Don't effect you does it OP? Mumsnet at it's absolute finest!

Little girl murdered, you take to the Internet to post about it and this is what you have to say OP. Awful

I don't see why flowers are an issue; they are biodegradable.

Re. teddies - perhaps a nice thing to do would be to collect up the teddies and donate them to charity before they get damaged by the weather, so they can serve both the purpose of tribute and bring joy to someone else.

I think balloons should be banned outright because they are terrible for the environment.

What an awful thread. If you want to get rid of plastic litter why not contact the supermarkets and campaign for flowers to be wrapped in biodegradable material. Rather than criticising people who have had something terrible happen in their community.

Dirty flag at the side of a dual carriageway seems so sad.

It is sad. It's a tragedy. But life's sad. And we do sad shit to memorialise sad events. That's who we are. We wrap flowers in cellophane and lay them in the spot where the victim took their last breath. We do this shit because we don't know what else to do and we're trying to do the right thing in a terrible, unforgettable moment.
We also wear white dresses, throw salt and flowers (and apparently, catching them means you'll be the next clown to marry!) and invite a bunch of people we don't really like to things called weddings. We have silly rituals. We dress dead people in their glad rags, put them in boxes, and stick 'em in the ground and take turns throwing dirt on them. We hand our babies to men in robes who then attempt to drown them in a bird bath, welcoming them into the church they'll never see on any Sunday. And then we host a party in some dingy bunker, called a church hall, full of <shudders> balloons and terrible food and cake.

We do weird shit because sometimes we need to. There's no real justification for anything. We just need to do it. And somehow, our weird rituals do matter more than we'd care to admit. You may not like the sad, dirty teddy on the road. I may not like it either. I don't, truthfully. But to the person who placed it there and yes, likely forgot about it or died themselves, they did so because someone mattered to them, a great deal. It's distracting, isn't it?

Anyway, the wheels have come off this thread... miles back. And I have totally aided and abetted that process.
MNHQ should just rename it I don't want to see your nan's decade-long, threadbare memorial knickers waving in the wind from a lamp post on the M25. It's distracting.

Don’t some get picked up and distributed to care homes, nurseries etc

Nobody is saying that this isn't an absolute tragedy, it is.

No, the OP didn't say it wasn't a tragedy. Nor did they say it was a tragedy. They said nothing at all about it. Just used it as a discussion opener.

Some of us here find that chilling, disrespectful and lacking in compassion. We'd rather not talk about litter but we did want to talk about how it was lacking as a discussion opener. Works both ways.

By the way, not everything that people do because they need to do it is 'selfish'. People love because they need to. Show respect because they need to, or think that the bereaved will be helped by it. Selfish implies doing something purely for the self at the cost of others. Leaving a bunch of flowers at the scene of a tragic crime is not a self interested act carried out despite the cost to others.

By who?

I do know one thing: I'd rather see a mound of decaying flowers from well-meaning strangers than see a thread about the atrocity of cellophane started on the back of my child's brutal murder by some tunnel vision poster whose emotional blinders appear to be gorilla glued.

This.

I can't believe all the vitriol aimed at the OP. I absolutely agree with the post. By all means, if the victim was known to you, make some sort of gesture (though I don't know why you'd need it to be so public) but random tributes from strangers are maudlin sentimentality and help no one.