Showing posts with label roadside memorial. Show all posts

Friday, 19 June 2015

Roadside Memorials = death, not Celebrations of Life

We were on our way to the city to view the Alex Colville exhibit.
Drive carefully out there, peeps, somebody out there loves you or your victim.

These are so sad, these and ghost bikes. Some are tacky, too. When they are neglected and flowers or wreaths turn brown.
This one features a flag, soccer and/or rugby shoes, as well as beer cans. It's outside Car Canada on Old Highway #16, and the area has been groomed. There is no last name, just a first name: Ethan, with a pen, and love notes from friends and wannabe girlfriends. People have signed the cross, made of 6 x 6s.

Please, people, celebrate their lives where they lived, not where they died. This is a testament to a mistake(s). It wouldn't be allowed in some cemetery, where they have protocols about displays.

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Another trip to the city –ghost bike

Riverside Ghost from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Everytime we come home from an appointment at the cancer clinic: we pass the river, Canada geese, and the memorial ghost bike. It is time to remove this memorial. It's a hazard for those in wheelchairs, for those ploughing the sidewalk, and it simply doesn't belong here.

Saturday, 6 April 2013

Skootamata River - bridge and roadside memorial near Tweed

Skootamata River

These are more photos from our Daycaytion trip. I broke up the 178 photos over a few posts.

I was looking for open water and birds.
I lucked in and found otters harassing geese!
My video post of the otters sliding along the ice.
When we arrived home, I took the cats for a walk, joyful for the dry leaves and warm ground.
Back to our trip...

You know you drive along, and spot a memorial and wonder what happened. With the Internet, you can count on finding out the details if you insert the right search terms. Hooray for small town newspapers, too.

I stopped and took some photos of this beautiful spot. The memorial was so sad. You could tell he was young by his friend's comments. The vehicle took out the side of the cement bridge, then fell into the Scootamata River.

It turns out that 16-year-old Cody Wood of Northbrook died in hospital, but there were two others with life-threatening injuries who were in the same car. The incident happened on Flinton Road, northeast of Tweed.

We never let the kids drive with others when they were new drivers. There are too many distractions and they were inexperienced drivers. Until driving become automatic, meaning that the higher-level, prefrontal cortex takes over, moving the functioning from brain stem, reptilian brain, you struggle with decisions.
You know how you are preoccupied with something, and don't really remember the drive home? That is more sophisticated part of the brain that governs executive function. Higher-level thinking skills are one of the first to go when someone has dementia symptoms: forgetfulness, losing your way home, unable to manage technology, etc.

There is much to worry about aside from checking your mirrors, keeping an eye out for animals, or other drivers. As we drove this road, we found many driving at top speed, several of which passed us. We pulled over a couple of times, too.
Slow down out there. Somebody loves you, or your victim.

Crash on Flinton Road, north of Hwy 7

Oct 31, 2012 – Central Hastings O.P.P. say the car went off Flinton Road in Elzevir Township and struck a cement bridge, before landing in the Scootamata River. It happened about 1:40 in the afternoon. One of the victims was air-lifted to hospital. Flinton Road, North of Elzevir Road, was road was closed until 9 p.m.

Friday, 9 September 2011

Lanark County Roadside Memorial

Local, Roadside Memorials
In my drives around the province, from Ottawa to Muskoka, to southern Ontario, I have spotted quite a few.

There is controversy surrounding one near our home in Lanark County. It is quite large, with cowboy hat, and two crosses.

The farm landowner doesn't like it. S/he has added some bales of hay and a trailer to try and minimize its sight. Those selling property nearby find it difficult to see.

Perth Courier

The mother of the dead youth, Cindy Whyte, claims it is her right to put up the memorial. I disagree. Again, to focus on the place where the young man died is truly negative, especially to me, a stranger who drives by. I deal with death every day, on my own time, in ways I can handle it. For parents who have lost children, knowing this young man lost his life there, may be too difficult to bear on a daily drive to work, or shopping. This is a difficult thing to pass while driving. Focus on a life, not a death. Of course, those, like me, who decline to complain about it, including the property owners, our voices are not heard. It is time to speak out.

As one mum wrote in Australia:

Bens Mum

08/11/2010

My son has just been killed on his motor bike and if anyone puts a cross at the place he died I have vowed to kick it over and destroy it. I do not want to have to drive by this place and have to see a lonely white cross. It says nothing about the son I had at all...it morbid ..way too sad..for myself and everyone who knew him. I just drove back from the city to our home town and passed cross after cross and each one hit me in the heart and was distracting me from my driving....dangerous too.

A quote from an officer who attended to the Newtown shootings:

Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site

One detective, who was driving with his wife and two sons, passed a roadside memorial on Route 25 two weeks after the shooting, and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I just lost it right there, I couldn’t even drive,” the detective, Jason Frank, said.

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Roadside Memorials - they creep me out

Ghost bikes will have a time limit in Ottawa

Cole Howard

Roadside memorial, highway #15

Driving around the province, from Ottawa, Wawa, Toronto, Muskoka, Lanark County, we've seen quite a few. A loving tribute to a loved one who has passed over.