Roadside Memorials

Tim's Roadside Memorial

Roadside Memorial for 3 Marines who died in a single car crash in my town.

Every time I see a roadside memorial, I make the sign of the cross and say a little prayer. Some roadside markers are quite permanent, I see them almost every day. Some, like my son's, not so much. His was, after all, on a sidewalk in front of someone's house. Who wants that kind of reminder out their front door every day? I wonder about the souls who died at those sites, and the loved ones they left behind. And I think about the people I have met since, and because,  my son died, who have or had roadside memorials for their loved ones (one of the ones I see nearly every day). I have lost touch with some of them, and wonder how they are faring, 6 or 7 years past the death of their precious child. I think I have a pretty good idea, though I can't know for certain. My heart breaks for them, and for the young lives lost.

I wonder when this practice started, people setting up memorials like this. I recall reading various books about settling the west, and how there were often deaths during the journey from the east. People were buried by the wagon trail, sometimes with a crude marker of some sort, sometimes with nothing. But the markers are long gone now, and nothing to show that someone's loved one died there. And how about people in the armed forces killed in war? Some were buried where they fell, and there is no marker there for people to remember them. But the markers and memorials are all for the living. May all those souls rest in peace.

Peace.