Roadside shrines

I don't personally agree with them but I respect the sentiments of those who create them. And they can be a reminder that we are all mortal and need to take care. There is one on Mapperley Plains in Nottingham that has flowers and a motorbike helmet fixed to a lamp post. Personally I think that is taking it too far.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Lozzo

My three younger kids place a single small bunch of flowers at the spot where their real father died in a car crash though no fault of his own when they were all very young - they do it on the anniversary of the night he died every August. It helps them to remember a good dad and it's their way of showing some repect for someone they still love very dearly.

Having said that, I don't want anyone doing that for me if the worst should happen cos I don't particularly like flowers. I'd rather my kids went out on the lash up town or something similar.

Would you be able to say why they choose the roadside instead of his grave?

Originally Posted by seedy100

From a practical point of view I disagree with planting trees, they are very unforgiving things to hit and unfortunately memorials are in prime accident sites, where roadside furniture and trees could/should be considered for removal.

Do you often take shortcuts through parks/fields/moorland etc then? By planting trees I was meaning perhaps somewhere near where the fateful accident occurred or just in memory of them in a different place altogether. Not right by the roadside, that would cause an obstruction.

Originally Posted by Stu

Would you be able to say why they choose the roadside instead of his grave?

They like to pay their respects at the place he died as well. When they were very young we all used to say hello to 'real daddy' as we drove past the point in the road that he died, me and their mum never minded because it kept his memory fresh in their minds. Even now they still speak openly about him affectionately and I wouldn't want it any other way. Kids like ours needed some way of dealing with the loss and they handled it very well considering. Whatever issues they may have or end up with are highly unlikely to be as a result of losing their real father at such an early age.

They lay flowers at his memorial with everyone else who does (other family and friends) at the graveyard too, now they are older.

[timwilky]

some are tasteful like the small bunch of plants growing out the grass on Coroners Corridor and I acknowledge somebody lost their life there.

Then there is one local one where a yobby kid rode his bike off the pavement into an oncoming car, the family then caused the road to be inappropriately reclassified, they moved away and return every year to plaster photos and flowers all over the railings that the kid rode round. Tacky and over the top

In the ROI, they do much of the same and have seen actual marble stones, kinda like mini grave stones at the roadside.

Personally, not for me although I can fully understand why people do it.

Don't bother me, a good reminder of the frailty of life, I usually end up backing off a bit or concentrate a bit more. More of a European than American thing, France has many of them on the back roads, proper concrete jobbies.

[Biker Biggles]

When I was trekking round Southern Greece every corner on the mountain roads had a permanent shrine.I didnt think each shrine was dedicated to an individual though,more a kind of general religeous thing?

Over here there are small crosses, sometimes candles often flowers. Occasionally teddies and suchlike which often indicates every parents nightmare. We put one up many years ago for a work mate at the roadside. Around Bosnia these shrines are granite with etched picture and quite elaborate.

I dont have an opinion on them as everyone deals with death in different ways. If it helps the family its not a bad thing.

No not for me. No likee.

When I'm dead I want a Swedish style funeral where they freeze the body and somehow grind it up into something that decomposes after about a year. I don't want no Victorian style solemnity and all that stuff, just a simple Christian service of committal and then whatever is necessary to dispose of the remains in a simple and dignified way.