In Memoriam...

Along the winding, narrow, and often crumbling roads of Guatemala, these sorrowful reminders of lives lost spring up like perennial flowers. Solitary or in collective groups, they help the living cope with their loss and they keep the dead alive, at least in the hearts and minds of those they left behind.

These memorials form a lifeline connecting the living to the location a loved one drew their last breath.

On a section of heavily trafficked highway connecting the capitol, Guatemala City, with Cobán, the capitol of the department of Alta Verapaz, the abundance of these memorials is saddening and shocking. On a return trip we documented these as best we could, counting, stopping the car, and photographing, and several times we came dangerously close to adding at least one to the number.

Here, pedestrians share the road with speeding antiquated buses, slow moving construction trucks, and dilapidated wrecks, few of which would qualify as roadworthy on US roads. The young and old, able and feeble, must walk perilously close to traffic, since the roads are in many places lined with home and storefront walls, thick pools of mud, or steep descents, leaving little room for foot traffic.

It became immediately evident that this informal survey would be far more difficult than we presumed. For one thing, these memorials are constructed of not just available but affordable materials: plastic flowers wrapped in cellophane; sections of pipe spray painted and welded into a cross; little house-shaped chambers with elaborate images of saints, Jesus, or the Virgin locked behind small rod-iron gates. They take many forms and can resemble the thousands of discarded items already strewn about the roadside.
After years of standing at attention near the side of the road, many markers were rusted, falling apart, and/or enveloped by weeds and brush.
Some stand alone while others, usually in the crook of a dangerous curve or at the bottom of a steep hill, stood in groups of four or more neighboring clusters, reminding drivers of the repeated tragedies that befall this stretch of highway.
It’s impossible to determine if the memorials are for mostly pedestrians or the occupants of crashed automobiles. While in many cases they clearly mark the location of tragedy (birth and death dates can be seen inscribed on them as if tombstones), some also serve as symbolic gestures of gratitude for survivors of near-fatal events.

In the distance of 135 miles we counted a total of 169 roadside memorials- an average of more than one per mile. Driving conditions prohibited a more accurate tally, and self-preservation required a limited amount of photography.


As these memorials remind us, the boundary between life and death can be reduced to a simple location and single moment in time. Although the poor souls lost on this road probably spent less than a fraction of their lives passing over this minuscule piece of earth, it is a place they are long associated.

While loved ones keep memories alive, these shrines of junk metal and plastic lodged into the edges of ragged highway in between desolate towns pinpoint a location and focus for their grief. These dead are remembered not just for being departed, but also for where they departed, leaving this place for what, if anything, awaits.