My sympathies to flower thief

"As the trick-or-treating winds down, another holiday will begin. People around the country will light candles, craft images of death and visit the cemetery to take offerings to their loved ones on Nov. 1 — the Day of the Dead" (Huffington Post)

"In the United States and in Mexico's larger cities, families build altars in their homes, dedicating them to the dead. They surround these altars with flowers, food and pictures of the deceased. They light candles and place them next to the altar." (AZ Central.com)

Far from being an exercise in morbidity, the customs behind, and the faith aspects associated with, this time of year are celebrations of the life and love which survives the earthly parting from a loved one. In the Christian liturgical calendar, Nov. 1 is All Saints' Day and Nov. 2 is All Souls' Day.

Imagine, then, my wife's surprise when she went to the cemetery where her son is buried, only to find that the large and heavy plastic fall flower arrangement which she had carefully constructed and placed in the ground there had been moved to another nearby interment site.

Moreover, an awkward attempt had been made to camouflage the damage by hastily and carelessly throwing flowers, perhaps stolen from other graves, onto the area where the fall flower arrangement had been on my stepson's grave.

As this happened several days before Halloween, there is no reason to believe that it was the random work of trick or treaters. In any case, the purpose of trick or treat is to play a recognizable joke, if I remember correctly.

No, there really is no answer to my stepdaughter's puzzled question of "Why?" The only plausible reason is that whoever intended to honor their loved one with the stolen flowers, somehow felt they were entitled to steal my wife's arrangement from the grave of her child.

In doing so, they effectively dishonored their own beloved, in my opinion.

The tears that my wife shed, in her frustration and pain over what was close to the desecration of her son's resting place, are still fresh in my mind. The most pain that I, as a husband, have ever felt or will feel is on those rare occasions when I have caused her to cry. The second most is when, on occasions like this, I have had to stand helplessly by and watch her brought to tears of sorrow by some other person.

I do not know who you are, though I know the name of the person whose grave you placed the stolen flowers on. It is doubtful, given the general quality of my readers, that you will ever read these words. However, if I knew who you were, we would have a discussion.

If you were honestly so poor that you could not afford to buy some artificial flowers, I would have gladly have given you money for some. But I suspect that is not the case.

I suspect that you are just some person too rude to know the difference between right and wrong. You have my sympathies.

Clyde Davis is a Presbyterian pastor and teacher at Clovis Christian High School. He can be contacted at:

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