Recently, I've noticed large "Rest in Peace" messages on the rear windows of cars & trucks...

[NurseJackie]

Recently, I've noticed large "Rest in Peace" messages on the rear windows of cars & trucks. It's always with laser-cut vinyl lettering... various sizes, but almost always ornate script or Olde English style font. Is it a regional trend? (in the mid-Atlantic Nova/MD/DC area?) Or is happening nationally?

Also, is it suddenly a "thing" that's going on (ie: in response to Covid and not being able to have proper funerals, etc?). Maybe it's been going on for years (but it's just now starting to reach a saturation point where I'm starting to notice it frequently.)

I don't know. Everyone grieves differently, but it's not for me. I guess I'm a little more old-fashioned when it comes to extended public-displays of grief and mourning. I'd wear black for a while, but I couldn't see myself with a permanent RIP message on my truck. (I wouldn't even put the trendy vinyl stick-people family decals on my truck!)

[janterry]

1. It has been going on for years and years (at least in the South)

n/t

[GoCubsGo]

5. Yep. They have been doing that here long befoe COVID-19 came nto existence.

[SYFROYH]

11. Yes, I was going to post the same thing.

[FSogol]

2. The trend is at least 10 years old. Have you seen the "in memoriam" tattoos?

I don't get it either.

[NurseJackie]

4. At least vinyl stickers can be easily removed with a widget-blade.

[PatSeg]

16. I haven't seen that

It still blows my mind what people will have permanently etched onto their bodies.

[sunflowerseed]

3. Another way for funeral homes to make money, u can get personalized bracelets and stickers ect.

We do seem to be having more funerals.

[NurseJackie]

6. Yep... I've seen the cremains lockets that they offer.

Ummm. No thank you.

I remember reading something about a company that could turn cremains into diamonds... for a price. More expensive that natural diamonds.

[pidge]

23. Law& Order had an episode on cremation diamonds.

Anna Gunn had some….she was very funny…a great show,fun to watch.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

7. Common in the Metro Detroit area for as long as I can remember

I actually see them less now then I did when when I was in high school.

[Sherman A1]

8. I have seen them around here and as you said everyone grieves differently

Not my thing.

[Amishman]

9. Very common, but I see it most with hispanic (particularly Puerto Rican)

been that way for a very long time too.

[Aristus]

10. I can't think of anything I want less after I die than to be memorialized on the back window

of a pick-up truck.

Except maybe for someone to put in my obituary that "Aristus has GONE FISHIN'"

I will come back and haunt that person so hard, it will make "Poltergeist" look like a Casper cartoon...

[NurseJackie]

18. Agreed. My epitaph should be on my headstone...

... not on the rear window of a loved one's car.

[Tommy Carcetti]

12. It's been happening for a while.

It's obviously a blue collar type thing. You don't see many memorials on higher end cars. But then again, you don't see decals on most higher end cars, with the exception of faux-hillbilly Trumpists on their late-model oversized pickups.

Personally, I really don't see a decal on a car as much of a memorial I'd want for myself, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[Good egg]

13. Common in the North Bay area

of California. Have been seeing this for many years, often on well kept vehicles in poorer section of town.

[Sympthsical]

19. Yep, I see them often enough

Source: Live in North Bay.

Seems to be cultural.

[Effete Snob]

14. Been going on a long time in PA/NJ

Must be that you just had not noticed it before. Turning rear windows into memorials for the dead has been commonplace in PA and NJ for at least as long as these dumb family representations in vinyl started showing up, maybe mid-90's:

[FSogol]

15. Now that I think about it, I have a reason for it.

The millennials were little kids when 9/11 happened. They saw the fetishization of the deaths and the attack thru endless tv pictures of the event. They see death as something that must be memorialized publicly and not forgotten. They desire to make a big deal over what is an every day occurrence (deaths). It is a way to say, "I too am suffering."

Disclaimer, I am not criticizing them for this, but do feel the truck memorials and tattoos are tacky.

[NurseJackie]

17. Excellent analysis and description.

[RobinA]

22. I Call All

of that ilk grief porn. 9/11 is grief porn Mecca, but it didn't start there. My first awareness of it was young teens who weren't even born yet weeping over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in DC. Considering the number of people who go there who DID suffer a loss in that war it just struck me as histrionic and unseemly.

[xmas74]

20. At least a decade or so here in MO

But they're becoming ever more prevalent with Cricut making it easy to make at home instead of ordering from a shop.

[2naSalit]

21. Been seeing them in Montana for years...

Not quite sure when it started.