Roadside memorials: Why mark the spot where a friend or loved one died?
A roadside memorial on Alps Road in Wayne. Family and friends often will leave mementos, religious items and photos at the scene of a loved one's death.
Sacred ground to some, eerie eyesores to others, memorials created at the sites where loved ones have died suddenly — often, though not always, in traffic accidents — continue to multiply on roadsides in North Jersey and around the country.
Are they a compelling expression of grief? An inappropriate use of public space? A reminder for motorists to slow down?
That depends on whom you ask.
Photos: North Jersey roadside memorials
Festooned with flowers, candles, religious symbols, stuffed animals, photos and personal effects of the deceased, roadside memorials are now banned in some states and cities. In states such as New Jersey, where the shrines are allowed, secular groups have objected to seeing religious items — crosses, in particular — erected on public land.
Some North Jersey drivers complain that the often elaborate shrines are an unnecessary and potentially dangerous distraction to motorists, and may be just as dangerous to the friends and family members who regularly visit the sites to pray or pay their respects. Other motorists say they are simply confused by this increasingly popular ritual: Why mark the spot where a friend or loved one died?
"I just think they're creepy," said Patricia Lang of Mahwah, whose husband James died after being involved in a car accident in Hoboken in 1995. Lang said that, at the time, it never occurred to her to create a roadside memorial for her husband. "I never saw the car or went to the site," she said, "and probably never will."
Lang does pass one long-standing roadside memorial regularly in Bergen County and said that seeing it always disturbs her. "I know a teenager died there," she said. "And although I can understand how these things might comfort someone immediately after a death, I don't understand the point of leaving them there [indefinitely]. Passing something like this all the time ... how can that give you any peace?"
For Ginny Goerg of Fair Lawn, the matter is a bit more complicated. In July 2010, days before what would have been her husband Larry Goerg's 49th birthday, her three children asked to visit the spot on Route 17 in Paramus where he had died, seven months earlier, after suffering a massive heart attack while behind the wheel.
There, as motorists sped by them, the Goerg children, then aged 20, 14 and 10, left flowers, a card and some "Happy Birthday" balloons, which they attached to a nearby utility pole.
Their mother, who was in the car with her husband when he died on Dec. 23, 2009, reluctantly accompanied her children to the site. "It was the first time the kids asked me exactly what happened and where it happened," she said. "And this was very difficult, obviously. I didn't want to go back there. But the kids did, and they've been going ever since. In 2011, they left a teddy bear after we found out that my oldest son and his wife were expecting a daughter. At Christmas they decorated the pole with a wreath and Christmas garland. Another time they put a large stuffed panda there, but that was taken down by someone."
Goerg noted that her husband is buried in Bergenfield, "in a beautiful cemetery next to Cooper's Pond. But when I ask the kids about going there, they say 'Why?' And that's been hard for me to understand. When I replay the events of the day Larry died, in my head, it's so horrifying to me. That spot is the last place I want to go. But the kids feel differently about it. They want to go to the last place where their father was alive."
The practice of creating roadside memorials for lost loved ones began in Mexico — where the shrines are known as descansos — before becoming popular in the American Southwest and, eventually, the rest of the country.
Some believe that the extravagant public memorials for Princess Diana, who died in a car accident 1997, also helped to popularize the practice, after the tunnel in Paris where the accident took place and the grounds outside Diana's home at Kensington Palace in London were inundated with flowers for weeks after her death.
The desire to be at the place someone died is not unusual, according to trauma specialist and grief counselor Saadia Parvez of Rutherford, especially if the deceased person died in sudden, unexpected circumstances.
"Visiting these sites is about making a spiritual connection," Parvez said. "When the death was a car accident or some other unnatural way of dying, mourners want to be at the last place where that person was alive, to stand there and try to re-create what happened and how it happened. What did the person think in the moments before he died? It's how our brain works. We want to make sense of things."
The practice has become so widespread that some stores that deal in religious goods now sell items specifically for these memorials, including crosses and Stars of David.
Botanica San Santiago in Hackensack sells crucifixes suitable for outdoor display and owner Robert Settle, who is Catholic, notes that many of his customers also place white candles and glasses of water at the site of the death. "The candle is to lead the spirit to the light beyond the death site," Settle explained, "and the water is placed there to refresh the spirit, which is considered particularly important if the person died suddenly in an accident."
In 1999, the South Jersey Transportation Authority placed a 10-day limit on memorials erected along the Atlantic City Expressway. Other states have tried — with varying success — to limit the memorials or substitute plaques or small signs in place of the more elaborate displays.
Still, despite the restrictions, the memorials continue to go up and family members even post photos of them online, at sites such as roadsideamerica.com and descansos.org.
Although Parvez says that the period of grieving for most religions is 40 to 49 days, some of these memorials continue well beyond that, such as the one for Courtney Brightman and Jamie-Lynn Krautheim, who died in 1997 when the vehicle they were riding in crashed into a utility pole on Riverview Drive in Totowa. The driver, Patty Vaclavicek, and another friend Colleen Battersby, were also injured in the crash, but survived. All four were students at DePaul High School in Wayne.
Jennifer Greer, a longtime Wayne resident, knew both girls who died and had classes with them. "The three of us hung out in different groups, but we were always friendly with each other. Seventeen years later, the memorial is still there. I stop by whenever I can and make sure it's not looking run down and spruce it up a bit.
"The last time I was there, there was a white wooden cross that I believe has been there since the accident happened, a few candles and some flowers. Most of the items there are faded now."
But "faded" is a good thing to Ann Marie Miller of Franklin Lakes, whose son Bradley died in an accident on Route 80 in 1987. A year later, Miller joined a bereavement group called The Compassionate Friends, a support group for parents who have lost a child.
"For families, the roadside memorials are a statement that says 'It happened,' " Miller said. "We live in disbelief for a long time. That is the worst of it. When I pass a roadside memorial, I pray for those who are left behind. And when I see one fading away, melting into the surroundings, I know that the families have gone on [with their lives]. To me, the uglier and more faded the memorial gets, the better it is. It means their loved ones have moved to a better place."
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