honorific lane change

i've been debating about this post for a week or so, but someone said 'do it' and that's pretty much all it takes for me to be convinced of something. i'm going to address that oddball little American habit of putting custom vinyl decals on automobiles to memorialize individuals who have died. There are a few out there for Michael Jackson and more than a few for Dale Earnheardt, but i'm referring to the ones for non-famous, regular folk.

i hesitated to blog this because it will follow my rant about the One-A-Day ad and, further down the blogroll, my rant about the failure of people to speak proper English and i'm sure a hundred different rants in the archives. i do not want to be a Ranter. Such prestigious titles are already filled by talking heads and 'personalities' loyal to the Republican Party and i've learned that although squeaky wheels get grease, ranting wheels only get more angry. i do not want to be a Ranter, but i think my common theme is not that people are being stupid, but rather that they are either not following the line of logic or they're not taking the time to pay close attention to what they're saying/doing. It is in this spirit that i rant. Not to chastise, but to encourage everyone to pay attention and to follow the logic down the rabbit hole we call Life.

The more i think about it, this is a piggyback to all my usual language gripes. As a reader/editor/writer/goober, i have the misfortune of choosing the words i use and hearing exactly what words are said to me. Even when i'm casually talking with friends and family i can safely say that i mean probably 90% of the words i use. That may sound like a strange statement in that 'of course i meant it, i said it didn't i?' but i mean them exactly, in their definition, connotation, etc. This becomes a burden when i'm having an argument with someone because i'm not a yeller, i'm one of those that goes stealthy and then produces a precisely worded statement of feeling. The cheif problem is that while i mean exactly what i say, the person with whom i'm arguing may have a more emotional, less precise method or may have a more casual understanding of the language than i do. Yet i assume they mean exactly what they say. Troubles, i tell you. It makes for troubles. (My advice to the singles out there: marry someone who has the same arguing techniques as you.)

The decals. You've seen them. They usually say something like, 'In Loving Memory of John Smith, 1967-2009'. What then, is IN memory? The Ford Fusion? the Ford Fusion's rear window? The act of driving the Ford Fusion? 'Memorial' has two parts of speech, noun and adjective. As a noun it means 'something designed to preserve the memory of a person' and as an adjective it means 'preserving the memory of a person or thing; commemorative.' The Ford Fusion was not designed to preserve the memory of a person, it was designed to transport humans and their belongings along paved surfaces. A monument is designed to preserve the memory of a person, as is a tree planted in the person's honor. Putting a vinyl sticker on a car makes it no more a memorial than putting said sticker on your toaster.

So the stickers on the cars are thus adjectives of memorial; commemorating. Well, that's a loving gesture, but does it work??? Does a sticker on a car do anything to honor a lost loved one and what they did with their time on earth? or is it more about the car's owner than their loved one? Is it to say 'look at me! i'm grieving!'? i kind of feel like it's more about making other drivers feel sorry or sympathetic, and making the car's owner a worthy recipient of everyone's condolences. Before rotten tomatoes are thrown at the computer, let me say that i do not think people applying the decals are secretly cackling, rubbing their hands together and thinking, 'Now they will all love me for being the grieving parent/widow/sibling!' But i think love and grief are very complicated and the urge and pressure to grieve 'properly' (whatever that even means) makes people do seemingly strange things without following the logic along its course.

i think the loved one smiling down from heaven, or from their perch on a branch after they've been reincarnated as a squirrel, would rather the $20 be given to a charity than stuck on the window of an SUV. If it's about having the reminder of a loved one 24/7 then engrave a bracelet or tattoo your eyelids. Don't make it public. Don't make it about what you can afford to drive or how you drive it. That doesn't say anything about the injustice of your loss or the goodness of the one you lost. i may be insensitive, but that's not my intention; i'm just questioning whether the efforts are accomplishing their noble goal. i've never truly lost anyone so i can't fathom how logic even fits in to grief, but i'm guessing that wherever it does is for the better for everyone involved.