DEAR EDITOR:
This has to be one of the saddest subjects to talk about, but I believe I am not the only person who thinks about it or wonders about it. The subject I am about to discuss has to do with death. Not just about a person dying, but about a person or many people who die in a car accident or people who die in a fire in their homes.
I have never experienced someone in this situation so I could not possibly understand what people are feeling after it happens. I only know of people dying in their home or in a hospital or in the care of hospice.
As I drive around the area in the past 10 or 15 years, I keep seeing crosses: on the side of the rode, in a vacant lot, on a corner of a street, on the property of a church, on the highways, in front of a business, even in front of someone else's house.
Some have elaborate tributes, people leaving flowers, windmills, mementos, coats, basketballs, wreaths, many have shrines and huge crosses to the people who have met a tragic death. I do not know when this started or even why. All I know is to be reminded of a place where someone I loved died would not be favorable to me, it would be a constant memory of tragedy and sadness.
I do not visit the hospital room where my mother-in-law passed away. I go to the cemetery where she is buried, to place flowers, or to plant flowers she loved so much in life, to place a wreath at Christmas time, to place a flag on Memorial Day, or to place a cross.
This letter is in no way to hurt anyone's feelings about their loss but to help them with their loss. It is time to put away the sadness.
-- Ruth Lilley, Niles