Greetings! Across academic disciplines, many scholars agree funerary activities rank high among the oldest rites and rituals practiced by human beings. Behaviors and ceremonies linked to death vary across time and place. Marking the place of a buried person has striking similarities around the world. Yet, marking the place where someone died is not always preserved. Of course, this happens for people of import and celebrities. Yet, there is one area of marking the death location that crosses boundaries of stratification, that is the road side memorial.
Most likely you’ve all seen one, probably even today. These can be signs, stones, crosses, flowers or other material culture objects just off the roadway to mark the place where a person died in some sort of accident. Cities and states handle these private memorials in different ways.
I wonder about the person, the accident and what will become of the memorial often when I’m out jogging. I also think about how it feels for family members to have this visual reminder of a lost loved one. That sort of thing can go either way. How do they react when the memorial gets destroyed due to the elements? How often are the memorials attended for upkeep and memory sake?
Perhaps that is one of the purposes of the road side memorial, that no matter who, how or when the deceased will continue to stir thoughts and wonder for the living.
Remember. Wonder. Run.
Tom
This blog post has interesting information about states and memorial markers.
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