Do The Deceased Need Flowers?

Not really. We have loads of them in funeral homes, for whatever reason; maybe they symbolize the life to come, the life that just went by, or a nice decoration.

But the Dearly Departed aren’t going to sit up after visiting hours and start smelling the roses. Nor will they come up after dark in the cemeteries to check out the displays. The flowers exist for us, as one of the few expressions we can make for either the beloved or the person’s families. It indicates compassion.

But when the funeral director is cleaning up after the viewing, most of those expressions have to go somewhere, and it’s usually out the back door. Except, for the longest time, here in Wilkes-Barre where even the deceased flowers are raised up to a religious second life for the edification of the religious.

We have a shrine up on West North Street, somewhat oval, fitting into a rock backing. It’s pretty much wasted land, of no use to anyone except for a person who saw a future shrine. There might be too many statues in there and perhaps it could be scaled down a bit. But flowers? All over the place.

Funeral directors found a decent place to leave their decorations and help the shrine at the same time. Up until recently, when the folks aged out and could not care for the flowers, the place looked like a garden. One loss was the gardener who had a fatal coronary in the middle of arranging the flowers, leaving us doing what he loved.