Feel free to leave kind words.
The simple invitation is written in black
marker across the top of white canvas boards nailed to a wooden
telephone pole on the northwest corner of James Street South and
Charlton Avenue.
A faded green alien dangles nearby on a
rusty key chain. There are ribbons; bunches of artificial flowers;
photos of a little girl.
This is not the place where Daniel
Abdolalian-Dolmer, 20, took his last breath — he died in hospital after
being struck by a car while he was riding his longboard down James
Street South on May 7, 2011 — but this is where his loved ones, from
time to time, come to remember him.
“I think the accident scene is always an
unanswered question. How did it happen and why did it happen?” says
Morteza Abdolalian, Daniel’s father.
At last count, the city’s road operations
department knew of 29 makeshift memorials scattered throughout Hamilton.
There is no formal policy for dealing with them, although roadside
crews often inspect them to make sure they’re not a hazard when they
spot one while on routine road patrols.
Bryan Shynal, the city’s director of
operations, says staff have noticed more memorials in the last decade
and will look into whether the city should implement a policy on them
when they review the streets bylaw in the coming year. Other
jurisdictions already have policies in place, including outright bans
that label memorials as distractions for drivers.
Hamilton’s memorials are as varied as the incidents that prompted them.
There’s the one just past Clappison’s
Corners on Highway 6, near Parkside Drive. Four white metal crosses
stand in a row, paint peeling and rust forming. A fifth cross stands
apart from the group. They mark the spot where a car crash just before
Christmas 2005, killed Vivian Porto, 43, her two children and niece, as
well as Robert Fox, 40, of Cambridge, who died of his injuries a few
weeks later.
Or the more unconventional memorial in the
middle of the soccer field of the West 5th campus of St. Joseph’s. From
afar, it appears a mound of weeds amid the expanse of a neatly mowed
lawn. Up close, there is a stalk of corn, small pink flowers, a broken
candle jar and some stones. There are no photos or names, but
presumably, this spot is meant to mark the spot where Michael Brewer,
30, was killed earlier this summer.
And then there are the flowers and photos
fastened to a cement electrical pole with bright red duct tape at King
Street East and Gage Avenue. This is where Matthew Power, 21, was mowed
down by a car while crossing the street with his friend on Nov. 5, 2006.
There was even a temporary memorial tacked
to a road sign in the area of Annabelle Street and Chester Avenue on the
west Mountain for a dog that was killed by a car after it got loose
from its home.
While some question the place that memorials
have along roadways and highways, grief experts and bereaved friends
and family recognize the role that these memorials play in the healing
process.
“We are being drawn there somehow,”
explained Abdolalian. “We feel obligated; we feel the need to be
connected; to be close to our loved one; to express our connection to
our loved one; to tell our loved one that we are always there for him,
that we’ll never forget him.”
Dr. Darcy Harris is the co-ordinator of the
thanatology program at King’s University College at Western University
in London, Ont. and has her own practice where she works with patients
dealing with loss and grief. She says many of her patients who have
experienced a traumatic loss gravitate to the accident sites where their
loved ones died.
“A lot of times, they weren’t there and they
feel a sense of guilt for not being there,” Harris said. “They weren’t
there to hold the person or to be there to comfort them while they were
dying. They wonder what their last breaths were like. It’s a very
difficult thing for them to try and resolve in their minds.”
Harris says roadside memorials are a way for
grieving friends and family members to do something meaningful in the
wake of something that feels meaningless.
“It’s a way of attaching significance and
meaning when they feel very helpless and powerless,” she said, adding it
is also a much more personal experience.
Abdolalian’s need to express his connection
to his son has extended beyond the flowers and remembrances left behind
on a pole at the intersection of James and Charlton.
He has set up a
blogin his son’s memory that’s designed to shine a light on the young man’s life while raising awareness for pedestrian safety.
“He was so young and you can’t forget. I can’t forget. It will be always with me.”
At the intersection of Upper Ottawa and
Fennell Avenue, there is a poster-sized photo of Paul James DaSilva
surrounded by weathered silk flowers. On it are the words, “very loved,
madly missed.” The 20-year-old died after he was stabbed outside of a
bar on April 10, 2009.
DaSilva’s mother, Shelley DaSilva, says she
normally avoids the place where her son was killed — “that corner is my
hell” — but makes the painful trip to maintain the memorial in her son’s
honour.
“I don’t want my son to be remembered as the
first homicide of 2009,” she explains. “He is Paul DaSilva. He is
somebody special. People are going to remember his face.”
In the past, she says, his memorial has been
torn down and trashed, but it’s been rebuilt and maintained, not just
by her and his friends and family, but by the community at large — and
for that she is thankful.
Harris says finding a memorial taken down or
moved provokes a “real sense of violation for a lot of people.”
“If it’s not causing a public nuisance, just
let it be,” she said. “And maybe it’s a reminder to all of us that
grief is really part of being human, and why are we so bothered when
someone chooses to honour grief in this way?”
905-526-3254 | @PattieatTheSpec
