From an obituary:
In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made in __’s memory to the Senior Citizen Center…
So what does expressions of sympathy mean? A check? A card? Say a prayer? Send flowers anyway?
Money.
Yes. Or, “instead of spending x dollars on flowers, send those x dollars to Charity Y”.
That’s what I thought. I wish they’d just say donation. I’ll go get the checkbook. Thanks for the quick answer.
Of course, but it’s just a little less crass the way they put it. Or would you have: “E. Dweeby, 99, of Eastjesus, Nebraska, died yesterday. Don’t buy flowers, but instead send some money to this charity.” More direct, but not quite right, ya know?
Yeah, they’d never be that crude over in Westjesus.
I wish more people would pay attention to the family’s (sometimes the deceased’s) wishes on that matter. When my niece died, my sister had an “in lieu of” line in her obituary, and got a ton of flowers anyway, leaving her to have to figure out after the [del]memorial service[/del] celebration, “What the hell am I going to do with all these flowers?”
We always took ours over to the hospital where the deceased was prior to being deceased and left them with the other patients and nurses on that wing…
(Big southern family, mom was essentially the family social director.)
Some newspapers won’t accept that wording because of pressure from florists. I swear.
Sigmagirl - which wording? The “In lieu of flowers” part?
That would be Not Too Good in dealing with certain traditions, especially Jewish, that recommend against flowers and other plants as expressions of sympathy.
Yes. The florists didn’t like people rejecting flowers in advance, in print. Some papers make you say “In lieu of other remembrances” or “other expressions of sympathy.”