“In lieu of charity, please support your local businesses, send flowers.” This idea came to me after reading endless obituary calls for charity in lieu of flowers (ILOF). I’ve been reading obits for decades. Thinking about death has always propelled me to get things done: “If I don’t do this now, I will run out of time.” Thus, I’ve completed a number of challenges, including the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon.
The ILOF phrase began to bug me, as if flowers at funerals were useless. Not true. What else says love and sympathy so simply? Their beauty and fragrance transcend space and time, calming the mind and uplifting the soul. The idea of funerary flowers is ancient and worthy. They’ve been inspiring artists and poets for millennia. There’s even archaeological evidence Neanderthals 70,000 years ago adorned their dead with flowers.
Flowers say so much: I love you; I’m sorry; happy birthday; merry Kwanza. They cheer up a hospital room and draw throngs of tourists to tulip festivals. Flowers offer comfort to the bereaved and pay tribute to the deceased. Amidst the sorrow, pain, and sometimes horror of death, they’re a signal that the world is—at least in part—gentle, soft, and lovely. Flowers urge us to cherish life while it lasts.
Why does ILOF bug me? Going online and, with a few keystrokes, e-transferring funds to a charity chosen by the deceased’s survivors erases the above. Sending money reduces another aspect of our lives to the drearily transactional.
Many charities have agendas, almost always left-leaning or advocating more government. Nobody supports drunk driving, but MADD, for instance, wants anti-impaired driving technology installed that whiffs alcohol and shuts down vehicles. Other causes advocate mandatory vaccination, Third World abortion, or veganism.
Which brings me to what most bugs me about ILOF: it undermines private businesses. Only businesses can make and keep our country prosperous and free. 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 to tax. Ultimately, government would collapse. Forget rich and free; we’d soon resemble Somalia.
Sadly, as Canada becomes increasingly woke, as citizens are being coerced by government diktat—regarding 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.
Some florists are understandably careful about expressing these sentiments. Susan Murray of Ottawa’s Scrim’s Florist makes a heartfelt but diplomatically phrased case for funeral flowers. “People want to give love and pay respects at funerals, and that’s what flowers do,” she said in an interview. “When my father died, it was the people you saw and flowers you received that were so meaningful and so relevant.”
Still others are forthright and blunt. “This is a major Pet Peeve of mine and has been since that phrase was first used YEARS ago,” stated Carol Fuller, owner of a flower shop in Gap, Pennsylvania, on one website. Funeral directors, oblivious to the damage ILOF does to florists, seem unmoved by this issue. “People today do not think of supporting a local business as a charitable event, but it is,” Fuller 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 florists caring about their livelihoods sounds crass, it must be asked if it is crasser for charities to receive money figuratively handed overtop of a barely-cold body? Maybe funeral directors just like it this way, as some florists suggest, pushing charitable giving because they want to avoid the hassle and labour costs of floral arrangements. 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 both involved.
ILOF is a veritable juggernaut. What to do? One idea is to politely confront funeral directors to explain the phrase’s destructive effects. Perhaps the words could be subjected to a formal boycott, in partnership with sympathetic funeral homes. Appealing to 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.
Whatever happens, I know one thing: I’ll be sending flowers the next time I get sad news.
