Reply #5: It seems excessive, for one

[enlightenment]

and it feels like these folks are using this event to pin all their emotions on -- not well phrased, sorry.

I feel sorry for the family of this child, I think it's awful that she had to suffer (and saying that with the realization that I don't know if she did, I'm assuming from what was reported in the news) -- but I can't even fathom buying flowers or a toy and placing it at a makeshift memorial. I didn't know the child or her family -- my feelings cannot be anything but general, not specific.

I'm not religious and that probably has something to do with my inability to understand what drives this behavior -- it does have serious religious overtones.

I'm accustomed to seeing these memorials by the roadsides -- smaller, and probably attended only by family and friends. Why aren't they bigger? Where are all these folks who have been so insistent that they must keep the memorial for this child, and stricken when it's removed? Why don't they bring stuff to all those other memorials?

What is the relationship between the event and the reaction? What prompts people to think this is a reasonable thing to do?

I'm not trying to denigrate; I would really like to understand this phenomenon.