Last week as we were buring my mother someone said something about throwing flowers in on the coffin. How did that tradition start? Is there a meaning behind it? Are there specific religions that do it? What can you tell me about it?
Kathy
Flowers have been found in Neandertal graves, so people have been doing it for at least 60,000 years. Flowers are pretty and ephemeral; the symbolism seems clear.
(My condolences on your loss.)
Thank you **DrFidelius **.
How did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition. And because of our tradition, every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.
Huh???
I think he’s saying, “God expects us to throw flowers on people when they die. Besides, everyone’s doing it.”
I think it may be a reference to the song “Tradition”, from Fiddler on the Roof.
Flowers are both a symbol of love and beauty as well as of evanescence and perishability* - after all, their natural beauty fades away pretty quickly after picking. In addition to what DrFidelius said, this makes the association with death obvious.
[sub]* Is that word in use? I found it in the dictionary, and the alternatives it offered, such as caducity and fugacity, seemed pretty strange to me.[/sub]
In 1998 my mother insisted on having my father buried.
We were told to throw ‘Rosemary for Rememberance’ on the coffin after it was dropped.
My guess is that she learnt it from Kent in the 1940’s
correct.
Who was Rosemary, and what did she think about this?
It appears in Hamlet, act 5:
You got the language/words correct. “evanescence” and “perishability” are quite acceptable, and even make you sound cultured and erudite.
On the other hand, I’ve been wrestling with the English language 40+ years and I’ve never heard “caducity” and “fugacity” until now…