On my way to work there is a bridge. Just a simple road bridge crossing over the motorway. I have travelled over it many times but today is different. Today there are flowers attached all along the railings. I remember on the news hearing that someone in my town had fallen from a bridge. This isn't the first time that this has happened in my hometown. This isn't new but it isn't usually this bridge. It is usually the other bridges. I don't know for sure but I'm pretty sure that someone has fallen from every bridge in my town.
Today the bridge is lined with colourful bunches of flowers still in their wrapping. People must've cared about this person and they are hurting. I drive to work every morning and the flowers remain. With each passing day they grow browner until there is no colour left. I wonder what will happen to the flowers, whether eventually they will be removed and whose job will it be to do that? I feel sad every morning when I look at this bridge and think of the desperation and grief that must have occurred here. It reminds me of the pain of others and what they must be going through still.
On the other side of the road people have written messages of hope and solidarity. They seem to be affected by the bridge too. They want to do something to reassure those that come here, for whom life has become just too unbearable. They want to comfort them and reassure them that this isn't the only way. It has left a mark on me and isn't long after first seeing it, when travelling on the motorway, I look up to see another bridge covered in flowers, in another town. When will there be a time that our bridges aren't adorned with the flowers of grief? Loaded with sadness, with 'what ifs' and lives changed forever.
The bridge I see every morning is more sacred than a graveside and more poignant than a funeral service. Today I quit my job, and although it is a massive change for me, somewhere in my heart I'm grateful that I will no longer have to cross that bridge on the way to work.
