Just an hour down the road is a work site I visit. In the space of the hour it usually takes to drive there, I decided to photograph the road-side reminders of lives lost. This trip took me longer than an hour because of the stopping (safely) and the photographing. It made for a sobering drive.
When you set out to start the day...
full of hopes and plans, things you're looking forward to, people you want to see and hug....
and your loved ones are at home waiting.....
planning what they will say to you, what you will have for a meal....
the kids excited about something great they did at school, about something ordinary they did at school but they know you will think it was great.....you start the day not planning for it all to....
STOP.
nb no Tuesday Tipple this week, another funeral to go to.
12 comments:
Amanda, you've totally floored me with this one. So simply spoken, so completely overwhelming...
That must be a darned dangerous stretch of road there ? Why so many crosses ? I just finished reading a book about World War I called "les Croix de Bois" (Roland Dorgeles) Wood Crosses... The wood crosses that lined many a road going to the battlefields. Looks like this must be an automobile battlefield... with alot of victims.
And how awful it must be for their families when the call comes from the police to say there's been a crash, and time just stops, lives just shatter...
And yet that is life, at its worst, but part of life nevertheless. Every day somewhere it's going to happen to someone. And we all perhaps silently pray it won't be our day that day, or perhaps we just ignore the possibility that someone near us, or ourselves will fall off the edge that day...
Enjoy it while we can, right ?
This is one of your loveliest and most touching posts ever I think.
A moment of silence for them all.
And "bon courage" to you if there is another funeral to attend.
PS shortly after reading your beautiful piece here, I stumbled on another very moving and lovely piece which you may enjoy (that's not really the word I want) reading, which is here :
http://majorityoftwo.blogspot.com/2009/12/vagaries-of-life.html
Yes, the vagaries of life...
Omigosh ... Oh, yes. Owen directed me to your post, and it wrenched my heart when I read it. Oh, goodness. I think a good definition of h*ll on earth is waiting at home for someone who is never going to come home, ever again.
People should realize that, when they get behind the wheel of a car and take stupid risks, they are hurting other people even more than themselves, if something should go wrong.
There are too many crosses on that stretch of road...!
Owen - gidday there and thank you so much for your very kind words. I have often thought of photographing all the road-side crosses I ever come across but there are simply too many!
you're right, I guess most people don't give it a thought and to be honest I am one of them most days. Except when I have to go out of town - for some reason that really makes me think hard! Thanks for the link, I popped over there and am going back again!!
Jo - I read your bitter sweet post and thank you too for coming to visit me at mine. Something about Christmas coming up made me think of all the lives that will be needlessly lost on our roads....
Terrible and sobering to ponder. A very touching post, Amanda. Thank you for taking the time to pay tribute to these lives lost and the suffering of those left behind.
Yes, that was very moving.
I always find it sobering when I see the crosses and tributes but I don't think I've ever seen so many on one road.
Here in the UK the police remove ghost bikes (bikes painted white left where a cyclist has died) but leave the roadside tributes to motorists which always seems a bit unfair to me, as if the lives of motorists are worth more than those of cyclists.
As has been said: very sobering. Sometimes we care for our loved ones best by taking good care of ourselves...
Unfortuneatly, lives are beomg taken as I write.
It seems some young, are destined to remain forever young.
Louciao - Thank you xx
RB - I like the sound of the ghost bikes! Maybe they should spray paint the image instead if the councils are moving the bikes?
Steve - never a truer word, my friend!
Meggie - Its so sad isn't it! I'm guessing you know the stretch of road I'm referring to, between here and Ashburton.
It's very moving to see all these roadside sites, Sag; and yet we still feel somehow immune from death ourselves....
I hope you will see some proper summer weather down there.
Thanks Villager - today we were told to expect 27 degrees! here's hoping!
It's a recent phenonenom; flowers by the roadside to commemorate a death.......or a life.
We don't get crosses in the UK but the principle I think is a fine one.
When you drive past these memorials you slow down don't you.
I wonder how many lives that has saved.
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