Small Memorials

I’ve started walking again in Grand Forks. I got out of the habit of walking in my neighborhood for any number of reasons. Some of it had to do with my effort to jog more. Some of it had to do with my dogs’ preference for the wildlife viewing on the local Greenway that roughly traces the route of the Red River Valley.

This week, I walked onto campus a couple of times and on my second walk through the intersection of Demers and Washington (which I believe is one of the busiest intersections in the state), I noticed this small memorial taped to a light post.

I have no context for this memorial, but I found it very touching and part of a very subtle and entirely informal memorial landscape around town. This landscape also includes a small area on the Greenway where flowers marked a place where a body was found a few years.

Last year, this place further marked by a bench with a small plaque commemorating the deceased. This summer though, someone stole the plaque from the bench. I wonder why that happened and to what end?