In lieu of charity, please support your local businesses and send flowers.
This idea came to me after reading for possibly the 5,000th time, “In lieu of flowers, please send donations to [a particular charity].” You’re probably thinking, “What a morbid habit, someone reading 5,000 obituaries!” In fact, I’ve been reading them for decades. In all honesty, I’ve been thinking about death almost daily since I was 17, right after my 19-year-old brother died by suicide in 1975. The year before that I was almost killed in a car accident that knocked me out for about five days. I remember telling my parents when I woke up that I should have died because I would never have known it. Weird thought, I know. I still have no recollection of the violent T-boning that finished off the Toyota Corolla I was driving and left me with a severe concussion.
The point is, yes, I think a lot about death, but no, this is not bad for me. I love life, and thinking about death propels me to get things done. I often think, “If I don’t do this now…” Examples: completing the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, becoming a lawyer, becoming a practising Orthodox Jew, quitting drinking. Again and again I’ve been motivated by the idea (whether valid or not), “If I don’t do this immediately, it’ll be too late.” This mindset has helped me reach numerous goals, to the point that I now feel I can watch Netflix, without guilt, all day.
I’m getting off-point. Let’s see, oh yes: given my obit-reading obsession, it started to bug me to see the phrase “In lieu of flowers” over and over again, as if flowers at funerals were dispensable or even useless.
They are not useless. The idea of adorning funerary rituals with flowers – as a gesture of condolence and a symbol of sympathy and love – is ancient and worthy. Indeed, flowers play a role in so many areas of life. Their visual beauty and fragrance transcend space and time, calming the mind and uplifting the soul. They’ve been inspiring artists and poets for millennia. Some post-Renaissance examples are William Blake’s “Ah Sunflower,” Robert Frost’s “Flower Gathering” and at least six poems by William Wordsworth – two of them called “To the Daisy” – and most famously, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Giving and displaying flowers has been part of cultures the world over for thousands of years. Flowers still say so much in our modern lives: I love you; I’m sorry; happy birthday; thank-you; merry Kwanza; and, “Don’t these smell beautiful?” The lovely perfume-like aroma and glorious sight of flowers can cheer up a hospital room and draw throngs of tourists to tulip festivals.
It’s obvious that sending flowers has long been an important part of funerals in Western countries, or there’d be no need for obituaries and service notifications (whether for a real funeral or one of those increasingly common “celebrations of life”) to begin suggesting mourners do something else. Flowers offer comfort to the bereaved and pay tribute to the deceased. Amidst the sorrow, pain and sometimes horror of death, they’re a vivid signal that the world is – at least in part – gentle, soft and lovely, and that humans do some things solely for beauty. Vividly-blooming cut flowers remind us that new life will surely spring up once more – but that life is fragile and fleeting. Flowers urge us to cherish life while it lasts. The word “flourish” stems from the Latin florem: flower.
Why does “In Lieu of Flowers” bother me so much? Going online and, with a few keystrokes or screen taps, e-transferring funds to a charity specified by the deceased or their survivors erases all of the above. Sending money reduces another aspect of our lives to the drearily transactional. It transforms an act of catharsis and joy into the mechanical fulfillment of an implied obligation. It further weakens the already-fraying connections among people.
There are ‘charities’ advocating mandatory vaccination, abortion on demand in the Third World, or veganism, or were historically apolitical but have become infected by wokism. The decedent (or their survivors) thereby try to force friends and other mourners to bend to their politics.
(I should mention here that funeral flowers are not a tradition in my faith for several reasons, but since we represent such a small proportion of deaths and obituaries, Jews’ not purchasing funeral flowers doesn’t make a huge dent in flower sales. As well, Jews tend to make up for it by buying tons of flowers for weddings.)
Another objection for me is the subtle politics sometimes insidiously inserted into what should be an apolitical, purely personal event. Many charities have political or quasi-political agendas, almost always left-leaning or at least supportive of ever-larger government and ever-more regulation. Nobody is for drunk driving, but MADD, for instance, wants anti-impaired driving technology installed that whiffs alcohol and shuts down vehicles, reducing every driver to potential criminal. Other “charities” advocate mandatory vaccination, abortion on demand in the Third World, or veganism, or were historically apolitical but have become infected by wokism. The decedent (or their survivors) thereby try to force friends and other mourners to bend to their politics. This is hardly morally superior to – and should not be considered more acceptable than – sticking with tradition, sending flowers and sustaining a local business in the process.
Which brings me – quirky me – to what most bugs me about “In Lieu of Flowers”: it undermines private businesses. This is a rock-hard conviction on my part. Only businesses can make and keep our country prosperous, peaceful, free and strong. It’s not government that generates prosperity – despite what many Canadians seemingly believe – it is freedom and private business, including the freedom to run private businesses. Without them, there would be no productive jobs, no sales or income to tax. Ultimately, government itself would collapse. Forget rich and free; we’d soon resemble Somalia.
Transcending space and time: Flowers’ mesmerizing beauty has been captured by artists down the centuries. Some of history’s more famous examples (clockwise from top-left): Vase of Flowers by Jan Davidsz de Heem, 1645; Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888; Water Lilies by Claude Monet, 1916; Radioactive Nurseries of Enceladus (in the Night Garden) by Marc Quinn, 2010.Sadly, as Canada becomes more and more woke, as citizens are being coerced in so many areas of life to suffer and comply with government diktat – pride ceremonies, climate change nonsense, over-the-top pandemic restrictions, health system failures – commercial advertisements have become the most cheerful and reassuring messages, telling us our society is not falling completely apart, at least not yet.
Not surprisingly, many Canadians – not unlike the caged inhabitants of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc for much of the 20th century – are being lulled into the sense that government is the solver of all problems. Our socialist health care system is crumbling. Yet for many, the “cure” is to intensify the very government-centric aspects that created the failures to begin with. Most Canadians would never consider privatizing the system’s major parts – hospitals, medical and nursing schools, and the vast majority of doctors’ payments. The predictable result is that things continue to get worse. Say what you want about the American healthcare system, but in most places you can get a family doctor and access specialized care almost on a whim.
Again I lost the plot. My point was, flower shops are small businesses; there are more than 3,100 of them across Canada. How does the near-ubiquitous “In Lieu of Flowers” affect the retail flower sector? The website Floranext explored the issue in a 2018 blog post entitled, “In Lieu of Flowers – Florists Unite.” It notes that the idea actually goes back as far as the 1950s but has expanded greatly in the last two decades with the growth of charities. It calls the phrase “perhaps the most detrimental four words in the floral business,” one that has ignited “an uproar in the floral community, as it should.” Florists wish they could “bury the term.”
It’s not hard to understand the sentiment – nor why some florists are very careful about how they express it. Susan Murray of Scrim’s Florist in downtown Ottawa makes a heartfelt but diplomatically phrased case for flowers at funerals. “People want to give love and pay respects at funerals, and that’s what flowers do,” Murray says in an interview. “When my father died, it was the people you saw and flowers you received that were so meaningful and so relevant.” Murray later inherited the business from her uncle, Paul Chandler, and notes that, “His obituary says, ‘In lieu of donations, please be kind to one another.’” That witticism points to the subject’s potentially incendiary nature, namely that sticking up for florists is seen by some as an attack on charities. While that seems absurd, it’s real enough that many florists, Murray among them, keep their heads down.
Not all, however; some florists have no problem discussing the issue in blunt terms. “This is a major Pet Peeve of mine and has been since that phrase was first used YEARS ago,” said Carol Fuller, owner of Fuller’s Floral and Gift Shoppe in Gap, Pennsylvania, on the Floranext website. “It is SO harmful to our industry and has cut our funeral business tremendously.” Fuller notes that funeral directors, in general, seem to be unmoved by this issue. Perhaps they are just oblivious to the damage “In Lieu of Flowers” does to florists.
That is Fuller’s charitable view. “People today do not think of supporting a local business as a charitable event, but it is,” she said. “Without support from people, we can’t stay in business. Especially since the pandemic, it has been hard for small shops to stay open.” If that sounds crass, is it any more crass for a florist to care about their livelihoods (which funerals can obviously enhance) than it is for a charity to gladly receive money figuratively handed overtop of a barely-cold body?
Perhaps funeral directors just like it this way. Setting up flower arrangements, then taking them down again and disposing of the flowers is hard work. Some even suggest funeral homes are pushing charitable giving because they want to avoid the hassle and labour costs of floral arrangements. Others vehemently deny this, one funeral director stating in an online article: “Other people outside the immediate family also have to grieve and for many, the public display of grief and support shown in [a] floral arrangement is how they put meaning to their grief.”
Some florists promote doing both during funerals. As one anonymous writer says, there should be “inclusion” – now there’s a term we can all rally around – wherein charities and flowers are each given a place at funerals. “Since the beginning of time flowers have been displayed for the deceased as a symbol of condolences, sympathy, and love,” this florist wrote. “Thousands of years ago, they were used for their wonderful fragrances and soft beauty. In this time of mourning when words are forgotten the flowers offer comfort to their surroundings.” By the way, this writer’s use of the phrase “beginning of time” isn’t a mere rhetorical flourish. There is archaeological evidence that Neanderthals adorned their dead with flowers 70,000 years ago.
‘What the floral community is asking for is not to MAKE people send flowers for funeral services, but to leave tradition alone and allow people to make their own heartfelt decision.’
Still, today’s “In Lieu of Flowers” is a veritable juggernaut. Can it ever be rolled back? There are a number of ideas. One is to politely confront funeral directors – maybe even at their major conferences, although who would volunteer to go? – to explain the phrase’s destructive effects on florists. Perhaps the words could be subjected to a formal boycott, preferably in partnership with sympathetic funeral homes. Educating customers through blogs, business websites and social media could be amped up. Another option might be to partner with selected charities so flowers are sent when donations are made, and vice-versa. Win-win, as they say. But now we are getting transactional.
The most powerful step is for obituaries to stop using the damning phrase. And that starts with people. It seems to me that lately, “In Lieu of Flowers” has receded slightly on obituary pages. Some are now saying, “Send flowers and donations here,” and others, “Memorial contributions can be sent here.” This could start rearranging the playing field. “There are so many phrases that can be used to convey a less discriminatory message,” one florist, who asked not to be named, told me. “What the floral community is asking for is not to make people send flowers for funeral services, but to leave tradition alone and allow people to make their own heartfelt decision.”
They may be only a small niche in Canada’s overall business community, but flower shops are important in many ways, not least of which is making profits and paying taxes, and continuing to support our ostensibly pro-freedom governments. Supporting a florist through funeral-related business also increases the odds that smaller towns and neighbourhoods can retain independent florists to turn to for happier occasions: anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, birthdays, social occasions and simply to brighten up the home during dreary weather. Oh, and if you’re not quite as uncompromisingly pro-business as me, consider this: the giving of funerary flowers has a charitable element, too, because afterwards they can be donated onward to seniors’ homes, women’s shelters, foster homes or hospital wards, cheering up innumerable people who can’t afford flowers or who might not have anyone in their lives considerate enough to send them flowers.
Lynne Cohen is a journalist and non-practising lawyer from Ottawa. She has published four books, including the biography Let Right Be Done: The Life and Times of Bill Simpson.
Source of main image: “Vancouver flower shop” by jimforest, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
