--crap-- keepsakes on graves

Roadside shrines are a distraction and danger to other drivers.

Who are we to decide what helps people cope?

I don't mind them doing things to help them to cope rotting toys and distracting roadside shrines affect other people.

Who are we to decide how some ways of coping affect others who are trying to cope?

I would not perhaps use the word crap in public(in public, note) I would prefer to say crass. I lost a daughter 38 years ago, a victim of 'Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. I had her ashes scattered but even if I hadn't I would not in a million years adorn her grave with 'tat' or traipse up to the cemetery/ churchyard every week( I lived opposite a churchyard for 20 years and witnessed these morbid obsessions). But I would like to ask those of you who have been so quick to chastise Vampirequeen... do I grieve less than those who make such public (and tasteless) displays? Have I forgotten my lovely baby who was taken from us so suddenly because she was born away on the wind rather than buried in a public place? Was I an uncaring mother because I didn't give her a grave on which to place teddy bears, plastic windmills and any other piece of tat?

What happened to dignity when Princess Diana died? It went out the window in a crass (that word again) display of mawkish sentimentality for someone that 99% of the population didn't even know. Displays like the one's mentioned on today's breakfast programme are unheard of in cemeteries here in France, and before one of the GN police jump in, yes wayside flowers are often seen, even for Resistance members shot 70 odd years ago, but toys, football scarves, ? No way. I think it's called getting your priorities right.

You're not going to agree with me, but I speak from sad experience which most of you don't.

It is so hard - one person's good taste is another's crap. People get through in different ways I guess. The use of flowers is traditional and I believe is seen by many as a symbol of loss because the flowers decay, as we all do. The more permanent items are a new way of doing things. I have to say that the sight of a rotting teddy bear does nothing for me, but I guess it does for the person who put it there. The ideal would be if they were to keep the grave tidy and remove anything that is rotting, but I suppose if it was a favourite item of the child who died that might be very hard to do.

Churches and LAs are under pressure from both sides - those who want to be free to choose how they mark the passing of a loved one, and those who want to see a tidy graveyard or cemetery.

I would not wish to chastise vq for her views - they are valid and held by many; but I would also find it hard to criticise a bereaved person for the way they go about coping.

I am sorry for the loss that you suffered absent - not something that you ever get over.

It's a pity those who call others 'judgemental' do not realise how 'judgemental' that can be.

If a visit to the cemetary to visit the grave of a loved one is made much worse due to 'crass' or whatever you want to call it, behaviour of others- who is to say whose feelings are more worthy of sympathy?

Personally I like a grave yard or cemetery to be a place of reflection. I don't like items left on graves and as for flowers left by roadsides etc I feel it has become a 'habit' and I do wonder if some people feel they should be seen to grieve as well as be grieving inside. Our baby twins died and were cremated. They are mentioned in a book of Remembrance and I have a dried flower from their coffin. There is no grave but I have kept some little wooden toys we had bought for them. We were lucky enough to have DD and DS laterand they enjoyed playing with them. Today our GC also play with these toys and so in my mind our babies have left not only their siblings something but also their nieces and nephews. All the children know the origin of these toys and accept it. Would plastic last this long?

goldengirl, that is so touching.

Norwich cemetery has lots of graves adorned with plastic flowers, toys and all sorts of stuff. As long as the grave is tended it doesn't seem to cause a problem. It's quite jazzy at night, especially Christmas when some graves are lit with fairy lights.

The main thing is that they are tended. There's nothing more depressing than dead flowers, old cellaphane - and sad, wet, rotting teddies?

Indeed

My son had a hand knitted doll in Hull Kingston Rovers colours. Of course he was called Roy. Roy was a favourite of both my girls and is currently the bedtime toy of my elder GS. Like goldengirl's son, my son's memory lives on through the generations.

I'm sorry but I think it's awful to refer to people's tributes to their dead children as crap etc. What a patronising way to talk. These families may not have the superb good taste of others, maybe they do raise the eyebrows of certain members of the local fraternity for their vulgar tributes, but who on earth gives someone the right to make this judgment? Presumably you superior folk don't expect these folk to criticize and make negative comments about your grave? Perhaps they they think yours is not quite up to scratch for whatever reason!! After all we're ALL entitled to an opinion!! Provided a grave is cared for, I can't for the life of me see the problem, and if it falls into disrepair, then as I've previously said, a quiet word in the appropriate quarter seems the correct thing to do. If no one can be found, then surely it's not beyond someone to quietly remove the offending tributes if its such a big deal.

Oh dear absentgrandma I think I might be one of your 'morbid obsessives' I traipsed up to the cemetery more than once a week for quite a while after DS1 died. I too don't like unnecessary stuff around the stone. It seems to be a modern thing only occurring over the last few years, now that there's more counselling available I wonder if that is how people are advised to deal with things.....just thinking aloud really.

Sent with love to all of you who have lost a dear one. We dealt with our grief in our own way and for each of us it was the right way.

I don't think I'm being patronising or superior just because I don't think it's OK to have rotting and/or broken items piled up on a grave.

The flowers tied to a lamp-post where there has been a fatality can be dangerous to other drivers? I fail to see your reasoning there VP, if anything, they can make you suddenly take stock of your driving, or at least empathise with the poor families who have lost a loved one.

I feel for anyone who's lost a child (I lost a baby at 22 weeks gestation and never saw him/her) and can well understand the grief involved.

Like nigglynellie I think that provided a grave is tended to then surely it isn't a problem? It's far preferable to the many untended graves.

Each of us grieves differently, and so long as it doesn't cause obvious offence surely that is all that matters? If adding toys, candles and so on helps the bereaved then I don't think it is wrong (let alone be described in such a way)

I visited my mother's grave every day for months after she died, it was only a short walk and could be seen from my parent's bedroom window. It was a sudden death and a great shock for the whole family. After my Stepfather died eight months later I found I was able to go less often as they were together and didn't need me (an only child) anymore. Looking back, I think I also was a morbid obsessive! All I knew at the time was that I was devastated at her loss at the early age of 68, I was 43, and could have done with both of them for a few more years that's for sure.

Absentgandma's post could have been written by me and I agree with her.

One point that has not been mentioned is that the grieving family may not be living in the area and therefore can only visit the grave occasionally.

For 30 years I have looked after a baby's grave for a friend who had to move away two years after her baby died of SIDS. I plant winter pansies and snowdrops for the wintertime and annuals for the summer. I remove dead flowers from all the children's graves but I would not touch anything else on the graves. I have cleared up litter and animal pooh. As the years have passed some babies graves have appeared with small tributes and I guess the families have moved away...but I will not touch them.

You have to respect other peoples graves just as we all respect the war memorials.

My eldest sister was born during WW2 and died a few days later. She is buried in a posh village near Haslemere in Surrey. As a child I can remember the annual visit to her grave when we lived in London with my Mum in floods of tears. My family all emigrated and I moved far away from Surrey. Some 15 years ago I visited the churchyard and found my sister's grave hidden under 4ft high bracken, and someone had carved three swastikas into the gravestone. The stone was repaired and the churchyard is maintained to a much better standard now - and I have a friend who regularly checks the grave for me.

I do not have a grave for my daughter but I have a her favourite soft toy on my bedside table to kiss goodnight!

It's not being a 'morbid obsessive', it is mourning in a way that makes sense to you, at that time. Many gain a modicum of relief doing this, so why not?

My husband was cremated and I scattered his ashes in Tor bay from our boat! It was our normal sailing ground and what he had wanted. It means I have no grave to look after and visit. I rather like to think of him drifting with currents he's probably off New Zealand by now and I've never been there l wonder if he's met Peter Scott on his travels?
Whimsical I know, but it helps me rather than a grave!

Next to DH's parents' grave (in a small village churchyard) is the grave of a little girl which has a lot of toys and plastic flowers on it. My in laws died over twenty years ago and nothing has changed on that little girl's grave in all that time. I don't know if the family are still in the district but I am sure no-one has visited it for twenty years. I find it upsetting to see that grave in such a mess but don't feel I should move anything. If parents want to mark the fact that this is a child's grave they could have a toy carved on the stone and it would be there permanently rather than putting things on which eventually become a mess.

I think it's a wonderful way to remember your husband Galen! I wonder who he's met too! A friend scattered the ashes of her husband on White Horse Hill in Oxfordshire. It was where they had loved walking, and he had requested that his ashes be scattered there. The National Trust were quite surprised to be asked if this could be done, and were only too happy to give their permission. I know that she gets a curious feeling of peace whenever she visits this place. Grief is a strange emotion, quite unpredictable, and how we deal with it is unique for everyone and everyone should be allowed to mourn and find peace in their own particular way.

Parties around a grave? Yes, I've done that. My grandson wanted his daddy to have a birthday party and so we did. He took a windmill and laminated birthday cards and one of his favourite toys to place on his daddy's grave. At four years old he couldn't imagine not having cards and gifts on a birthday. It was fairly heartbreaking for the rest of us as we sang 'Happy birthday' and tried to stem the tears, but it really meant something to my grandson and he went away very pleased that his daddy had had a proper birthday.
Fortunately the grave is in a very well tended (and attended) cemetery, where the regulars look forward to a chat with my grandson (and his mum) and often talk to him about the various items he leaves on the grave. Many of the things we remove or dispose of in time, but others he strenuously resists us taking away; a favourite mug for instance. Having read this thread I'm very grateful to the lovely people who stop and take time to talk to a little boy about the 'crap' he brings for his daddy.

Do the rotting and/or broken items piled up on a grave, upset you in a particular way, because of the death of your 8 month old DS?
And the roadside shrines?
Gives you perhaps reminders, that are uncomfortable? Rather then comforting?