Osler's Razor

Americans create two kinds of memorials.

One kind is formal and stolid. A headstone, for example, set into the lawn of a cemetery, a name chiseled into the stone with the dates of birth and death. A statue, perhaps, of a man on a horse with a sword. They are the products, in a way, of commerce: someone was paid to create it. There is an industry to do that. The good thing about these memorials, of course, is that they are there for a very long time--you can go and pay your respects, or just marvel at the history of a place.

The second kind is informal, anarchic, the pile of stuff people leave in the place where something terrible happened. There is no industry for this, except perhaps the inadvertent involvement of those who sell stuffed animals or flowers. In one setting, it might seem like detritus, but here it is this wild expression of memory, raw and real.

When I see the second, I stop and I walk over and look. Do you?