Weekend Photo Essay Part 2: Trip to Indy

Red Teddy. This one really stands out when you see the shrine.
Side view.
This is the way you see it when you drive down the street - only you kind of just whiz by...
The cross placed among the teddies was a reminder to me of how many people use their faith for comfort in the face of tragedy. It made it seem more ironic or maybe even a little cruel that I have always called these shrines "Crucified Teddy Bears."
Pictures of the victims, I believe, posted on the pole. I would like to do a little research and be reminded of what happened here. I have always thuoght it was the shooting of a single boy who was caught innocently in the cross fire, but then I see the picture of these three guys together and I wonder if this is a commemoration of a different incident than I thought or if these guys are his brothers or what.
but then there is this picture of the single boy, so maybe it IS the incident I thought. I am sure I can do some research and find out. I think there was also some stuff printed near the photos. I felt really self-conscious, however, standing there and taking the pictures. I might feel more comfortable if I try to read the stuff without camera in hand.

Saturday evening after we went to the Bike Project/ Sustainable Living event it was time for me to take Michael back to Ed's (at least that was Ed's opinion). On the way we stopped by Heather's to pick up some sheet music she had purchased for him and to attempt to put her mattress on her bed frame. It turned out the mattress was the wrong size, so that was a failure. This is the memorial that we always pass as we head from Heather's back to the highway. It has been there over a year. I always think of it as "Crucified Teddy Bears" and have wanted to take pictures of it for a long time.

I am very interested in this type of memoriam. In Indiana they seem very common on sites where children are killed. Also people put white crosses and photos and flowers near the highway where people have been killed in accidents. I always wonder if this is a regional thing or do people do this all over the state? the midwest? the country? the world? Part of me would like to start take photos of different memoriams I see. I'd like to document things like different types, how long they have remained since the death they commemorate, different styles and such. It seems morbid, I know. Part of my work at the newspaper is taking and placing memoriam ads for families and friends of dead people. Part of me wants to make fun of the customers placing the ads...wasting hteir money on something the dead person will never know about. One time a few years ago I was talking about that and Sue, one of my coworkers who had a grandson who was shaken to death by a babysitter as an infant, said, "It's not for the dead person. It comforts the people who are still here." I have tried to be more respectful of the people with the memoriams since then. Every once in a while I still let my cynicism about it slip... especilly when people use this poem, "If tears could build a stairway"

If Tears Could Build A Stairway

If tears could build a stairway,

and memories a lane.

I would walk right up to heaven

and bring you back again.

No farewell words were spoken,

No time to say "Goodbye".

You were gone before I knew it,

and only God knows why.

My heart still aches with sadness,

and secret tears still flow.

What it meant to love you-

No one can ever know.

But now I know you want me

to mourn for you no more;

To remember all the happy times,

life still has much in store.

Since you'll never be forgotten,

I pledge to you today-

A hollowed place within my heart

is where you'll always stay.

~Author Unknown~

I really don't like this poem. I am sorry if some of you (what my two readers) like it or have used it in a memoriam for a loved one. Last week I had a customer use it in a memoriam and then ask if we had to credit the author. I said, "well, if we know the author, we generally try to, but we usually think of this as author unknown." She replied, "Oh, It's Led Zeppelin." I swear I almost peed my pants. I just said, "Well, we don't have to put it." So yeah, I laughed at that customer and her memoriam by "Led Zeppelin" after she left. Worst part is, it left me with "Stairway to Heaven" stuck in my head all day and I don't know all the words by heart so it was only selected phrases. I can't listen to music at work anymore so I couldn't purge it until after work.

I would like to take more photos of memoriams. Maybe if I see more, read more, know more about the people whose lives they commemorate, and the survivors they comfort I can understand them more. It may be a project I will take on some day. I could start near home. There is one right at the intersection where I always enter Hwy 37. It probably wouldn't take too much to research what happened, who placed it and who maintains it - it often has new flowers and is always neatly mown around it.

I think I comfort myself with a loved ones death by thinking about their lives. As I have looked through many of the family pictures I have recently taken from Mom and Dad's house I have thought a lot about Grandma Holt. As a child I didn't know her very well and always felt somewhat afraid of her. Now I have seen so many pictures always happy, smiling, looking like she's having a great time. I didn't realize she and Grandpa went to Vegas quite a few times. Now I can't wait to go again and go to Fremont Street and get my picture taken at the Lady Luck Casino too! I have already taken her name informally. I can't wait to have enough money to change it legally. That will be my memoriam, instead of memories of the slight fear I had as a child, to have her name and try to live up to the fun-loving and vibrant woman she appears to be in these photos. As I scan some more I will post them.

Positive thoughts for good memories of those passed on and for whatever methods we use to remember or honor them that we try to be respectful of one anothers' needs for comfort and caring.