My husband died* in October. One of the ways that I’ve been working through my grief has been spending time out walking: if you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ll know that I’m one for wandering, and for years I’ve found solace and comfort in the steps that start at my front door and take me across the paths and redways, around the lakes and parks, and through many of the Milton Keynes estates. Over the last strange weeks and months, I’ve been expanding my horizons. Compassionate leave from work has given me the time to extend these walks to places I’ve never explored before, the freedom to spend the cold hours seeing where the next path will take me before turning back home to see where life’s going to take me now, too.
In this frame of mind, it’s probably no surprise that my attention’s been caught by these mementos mori placed around the city. They’re beautiful, thought-provoking things to find. It feels like there are more of them now than there used to be, although that could just be that they seem more prominent to me now as I’ve been thinking so much about death, about loss, about remembering. Now, these arrangements, sometimes a poignant single bunch, sometimes a miniature shrine of bouquets, some with accompanying notes but more often anonymous, always make me stop in my tracks and pause with them for a while. The locations vary from secluded spots off the beaten track to highly trafficked walkways but I know that the spot must have been carefully chosen and hold some deep significance for whoever took the time to place their flowers there. They’re often a bright spot in the landscape, arresting in their appearance and calling for contemplation.
While I pause, I spend some time asking questions which I know won’t have answers. Of course, I wonder what happened, but also why this particular place was chosen, and what it meant to them – was it somewhere they also used to wander and which holds fond memories of the time they spent together, or is it just a particularly beautiful spot? Why these flowers? Of course, flowers bloom and then they fade, and I come across these memorials in all the stages of that process from the freshly-placed to the weathered-beaten and decayed, and those always seem the most poignant – will someone come and take them down again, or will they stay in place until time, rain and wind take them away entirely? And then, the really big questions – who has been lost, and who has been left behind? I keenly understand the need to make a mark, to place something tangible where it will be seen. When you lose someone special but the world just carries on as though nothing has changed, there’s an urge to Do Something to show that no, life isn’t the same as it was, to acknowledge the scope and scale of the absence. Leaving these flowers for the lost feels like a way to do this, and I hope that by noting and noticing them, I’m playing a part in that, just one of the many people who will walk by and do the same. In a way, it doesn’t really matter that we don’t know the who or the why – maybe just stopping to think and care is enough, a silent and anonymous communion of sympathy. I hope so.
I thought long and hard before deciding to make this post: would it come across as disrespectful or as though I was being ghoulish in documenting them? I sincerely hope not, as that would never be my intention… and if anyone recognises their tribute here and would like me to remove the picture, please do talk to me and I’ll do so straight away. However, after a lot of thought, the conclusion that I came to was that you’d left them where you did precisely so they would be seen, and that your person would be thought about and remembered. I hope that by sharing them here too and talking about the impact they had on me, I’ve helped a little to keep their memory alive, whoever they were and whatever the reasons for the tribute. I hope we all find some peace.
* Jef’s story isn’t one for this blog, but if you’d like to read some of it, I have a tribute page here.
Discover more from City of Secrets
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Leave a Reply