Over the years I've noticed more and more bunches of flowers left at roadsides usually the scene of an accident, when did that start? I don't remember it being a thing when I was younger. Obviously we use flowers at funerals and memorial services like Armistice Day.
I remember it really being a thing when Diana, Princess of Wales died, the tons of flowers left at palaces around London and them being thrown in front of the hearse as they they drove to her internment.
But now they seem to be everywhere, not that I think it's a bad thing, I think it's good for there to be a place where people can show common humanity and compassion both for those who were lost and those who survive.
I do find myself wondering at the symbolism of it though. Just after someone has died I can see that their spirit might be attached to the place of death, but after a year or two, shouldn't the symbols move on to the place of burial or scattering? Surely the spirit dosen't hang about it's departure point to the afterlife?
As we're so much more of a secular country now and churches play a less important role in the lives of many, I think we might need a new narrative around death to fit a secular age, I don't think we're any less spiritual for being secular, the flowers show that impulse is there, but we dont' seem to know what to do with it.
What do you think?
