There are flowers beside the road on Hatchet Road today, just up from the bus stop, opposite the Co-op. I have mixed feelings about flowers. They are often beautiful to look at, I love the smell too. Sometimes, flowers are associated with tidings of joy, other times they are overwhelmingly sad. Today, the flowers are there for all the wrong reasons.
Whilst a friend of mine and I were having a pint in my local on Tuesday night, a tragedy was playing out barely 50 yards away. There was a collision between a car and a young woman of 28. The woman died. At 28. She died. I knew nothing about it until my friend texted me as he went to the bus stop to go home.
We do not and must not speculate on names, nor the guilt of anyone who has been apprehended. It is unnecessary prying and everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. We should not add to the distress of those who have been left behind, nor in any way influence the police investigation. But we can mourn.
I visited the flowers this morning. They are in several places along the road, the only reminders that a terrible incident has occurred. As I stood silently, as did others, I was aware that the eyes of passing drivers were also looking at the flowers, as you would. Not rubber-necking in the ghoulish, voyeuristic sense we hear about in travel reports, but ordinary people, making their way from one place to another in the morning gridlock, taking in what they were seeing and knowing that there was a tragedy behind the flowers.
If I had thought this village in particular and this world in general had seen enough tragedy to last a lifetime, I was very wrong about that. Like an unremittingly grey cloud hanging over us, the bad news keeps on coming.
I am not speculating as to the identity of the victim. We will know soon enough when legal procedures have taken their natural course and we will all learn things we could probably live without. I know how this works now. It is a small triumph of the human spirit that we, somehow, manage to carry on through the endless tragedy that punctuates our lives, but nothing hurts more than the end of life for the young and very young. We do not want any loved one to die, not ever, but we know that one day we will. We want to live to be old, with all our faculties intact, to not die in pain, to be in control of our faculties; but the odds are not good. When someone has lived a full life, we can at least take comfort from that when they die, but when they are young? Then, it’s a struggle. And I don’t think we ever get over it.
Throughout my life, just like yours, I suspect, I have people who died when they were old old, some who died young. Each leaves a scar that will never heal. But I always feel the biggest loss of all is the loss of life ahead, the lost opportunities, the what could have been.
It looks like there were some heroes at Tuesday night’s crash. Those who were with the poor victim right at the end, the emergency services who have to deal with the tragedy in the here and now. Never forget them. They see unimaginable tragedy as part of the job description. Don’t tell me they are immune from the pain. I won’t believe you.
I expect the display of flowers on Hatchet Road to grow and grow as more information becomes clear. Flowers may be placed there for years to come, perhaps even a memorial. It’s more than an item on the daily news, a brief report on the local TV news before the “and finally” bit. It’s the worst thing in the world and I am terribly sorry for the young woman, her family and her friends.
