To place flowers on the grave of someone I don't know?

[ChocChipOwl]

There's a back story of course. I'm not a random weirdo!

My DH thinks I'm mad but I think this is a nice thing to do.

I like researching social and local history and I'll do it for the various places I've lived. I'll use online searches etc and research a place / person and it's all quite interesting

Anyway, I live in a very small village and was researching a local house when I found a postcard dated 1915 which was sent to a lady who lived round the corner from me. I researched more on her, the area etc

She died in 1917 and is buried 0.2 miles from my house in the churchyard

I've now finished this particular research and wanted to put some flowers on her grave. She has no living relatives as her daughters were both 'spinsters'

Only a three quid bunch of tulips. My husband thinks bonkers but I think just a nice token of .. appreciation? Esteem? Not sure

I'd remove them in a week so nothing festering in there

So. A weirdo? Or nice?

I think this is a lovely idea but I would leave a note on the flowers very shortly explaining they are for her and why.

I say this because although you think she has no next of kin - it maybe there are descendants of friends or others who may have known her who come to the grave whether as a one off or otherwise.

You just don't know so I think it would be better with a note in case. It might disturb someone you don't know about. If you went to a grave of someone you knew or cared about and found anonymous flowers, you would probably waste a lot of mental energy worrying who/why/why anonymous etc.

I haven’t read all the responses so apologies if this is a repeat but I think the sentiment might hold something here.

www.thejerichocup.com.au/news-media/the-day-my-family-came-poem-by-michael-edwards

A person hasn't died until their name is said for the very last time

come again?!

A person hasn't died until their name is said for the very last time

Peak schmaltz 😂

doesn’t even make sense! 😂

Can sometimes please explain why you would worry to find flowers on a grave that you didn't put there. How would you even know they weren't from another visiting family member

It's all so dramatic! What is there to worry or be disturbed about?

I think the idea is that you die once when your body gives up but carry on living in people's memories. Once the people that remember you also die, you die again. There's a famous quote about it, which I can't remember! The emphasis is on continuing to live on in people's memories which itself isn't something to mock, I wouldn't have said.

Lovely thing for you to do

Well the OP’s husband would t worry.

He would just think that whomever did it was “mad” and “barmy”! 😂

@Whatislove82 why not just fuck off the thread if it's just a big lol for you? You're clearly not here to make any valid point anymore ..

Good grief!

I thought it was a lovely idea.

I just thought it was sad you were second guessing yourself about doing something so lovely because of your husband thinking you were barmy.

It has clearly touched a nerve riled you so I will scarper!!!

Lots of food for thought and thanks for all of the points of view (well, bar the one!)

I’ve done the same, but for a forgotten relative of my husband. She never married and had no siblings so I suspect no one has been near her grave for 70 years until I tracked it down as part of my research A lovely way to remember someone

Can sometimes please explain why you would worry to find flowers on a grave that you didn't put there. How would you even know they weren't from another visiting family member

Speaking generally not this situation - there are lots of possible reasons.

Generally, you'd expect a visiting family member to be known to the immediate family and to either tell them or leave a card. If it was your mother or sister and you found random flowers on the grave you'd naturally want to know who left them. It's normal to want to know.

You just don't know of anyone's situation - whether there is any identified extended family or how many people know where the grave is. Some people have very private burials in the sense that few people know.

A specific example where it might cause really pain (again general not this situation) is if there was suspicion that the deceased was having an affair or known to be having an affair. If you've ever known anyone who discovered after their spounse's death for the first time their spouse was or suspected to be having an affair, you'd see first hand the trauma that can cause. Anonymous flowers at a grave would really distress in that situation.

Flowers are supposed to be a tribute so if you were doing it anonymously it would be nicer to leave a note so that if there are any interested parties (in this situation unknown next of kin or descents of friends etc) they don't get all perplexed and mentally run through who it could have been.

When I was a child we used to clean up forgotten graves and put flowers on, usually just picked from the garden (with permission!), it just seemed nice to mark them occasionally, that they had lived - why on earth not? I don’t know where the ashes of one of my most loved friends who died in our early teens are, I think her mum must have them at home and she chose not to keep in touch with anyone after the funeral understandably, so I sometimes lay flowers on memorials or appropriately places for her.

Basically, what I am getting from MN lately is
"Don't ever do anything including nice things because you might hurt/offend/anger/scare/sadden someone even by the nice thing. The fact it is like 1 in million chance doesn't matter. Just don't do anything"

It's amazing. No matter what topic, ehat thread there is always "but what about...". Essentially by this point we shouldn't do anything, anywhere at all.

Yes. @Bubblebubblebah I agree
The message is often don't engage, don't do anything nice or altruistic. You'll get it wrong!

"Don't ever do anything including nice things because you might hurt/offend/anger/scare/sadden someone even by the nice thing. The fact it is like 1 in million chance doesn't matter. Just don't do anything"

@Bubblebubblebah If that was in response to me I didn't say don't do it at all, I say - do it but leave a little note with the flowers explaining who/why in case.

This is a lovely idea. I once found 2 books from the 1950's in a charity shop that had obviously been donated together. They had messages written in the front where they had been given to the same woman as a gift, there was a postcard from a family member used as a book mark plus the owner had labelled people in an illustration with family names (ie saying they looked like the cartoon people in the illustration) That gave me quite a lot of information to go on.

I tracked down some descendants on Ancestry and sent them scans of all the interesting bits. That was quite satisfying!

On the contrary - as long as someone is remembered and their name spoken they live in our hearts.

I have a card in memory of a man who died in the Lodz Ghetto. I hold him in my prayers every Holocaust Memorial Day to keep his memory alive.

You may not think the idea makes sense, but I do, and so do many people.

There is a grave yard near me. A lot of graves from Victorian times or before. The path through the graveyard leads from one part of town to the other and it is also a way of getting to the zen garden the church as created.

One grave is a 15 year old girl, died in the 1850s. Her parents only child. It has always just stuck with me, I think because of her young age and the tragedy of her parents losing their only child. She is lying under a gorgeous blossom tree now. Maybe that plot was picked for her because of the tree or maybe the tree grew later but she definitely has the nicest spot there.

Anyway, this thread has inspired me to maybe lay some flowers for her next time I walk past.

I think you should do it! It sounds lovely that someone is thinking about her after she is gone!

That would be lovely to do. Really thoughtful and kind.

I do this.
My dad died a few months ago. When I started going to the cemetery to visit him, I noticed the grave of a 6 month old baby who would be a month younger than me now.
There were never any flowers at her grave so now every time I go, I take some for baby Holly too.

What if it turns out she wasn't a very nice person? I've heard stories like this before where a woman put flowers on a grave regularly because it was intended and she felt sorry for them. Turned out the person in the grave was a convicted rapist who's family wanted nothing to do with him alive or dead.