Dead Flowers
‘You can send me, dead flowers every morning
Dead flowers in the US mail
You can send me, dead flowers for my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave’
- Rolling Stones, ‘Dead Flowers’
It’s a unique feature of Russia. You can hardly pass an old monument or wall bust, and certainly not a war memorial, that doesn’t have a lingering floral tribute. Even if it’s just a few petals.
Oooh So Soviet Kaliningrad is littered with dead flowers. The picture below is of the war memorial - an old tank - on the road between Kaliningrad and Svetlogorsk. These soldiers are on dead flower sweeping up duty.
In other towns in Russia, I’ve noticed that the wreaths by the war memorials can be plastic or paper. Not in Kaliningrad. You get real roses on your grave. Have a peek under the tank, where the soldier’s brooms have missed a few.
Flowers on graves? You’re lucky. Here in the southwestern United States, not a day goes by that I don’t see a tacky roadside shrine to somebody’s deceased teenage son or daughter: not in or near a cemetary, or anyplace special, just next to the sidewalk on some major street.
It’s as if, having had life turned into some sort of idiotic spectator sport with so-called “reality TV”, they can’t resist just a little more public exposure. Crude, hand-lettered signs on posterboard, with a pen for random passersby to add their graffiti; candles, a polaroid photograph of the deceased. Sometimes a little hand-made cross. It’s hard to think of a less dignified treatment of a solemn subject. And we’re not talking about Mexican border-crossers bringing their quaint village ways with them. We’re talking about ordinary working-to-middle-class families who have never known anything other than urban American living. It’s weird. I wouldn’t dishonor my dog that way.
Those tacky roadside shrines as you call them are for those who died in vehicle accidents at that location. They’re memorials and reminders of the tragedy that can happen to anyone. It’s not some publicity stunt, it’s a message from the family, “This is where my son, my daughter, my brother or sister, my husband or wife, my friend died. Please be aware and take care on the road, because you aren’t the only one there.”
Words of comfort and commiseration offered by strangers is not graffiti, it’s humanity and empathy. If these words create even the slightest feeling of warmth in those left behind, isn’t it worth it? So what’s wrong with working class families expressing their grief? What’s wrong with strangers sharing in it?
If you’ve never bothered to understand, you shouldn’t run your mouth and immediately dismiss it.
Somebody give them soldiers a weed-whacker.
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