Kelsey Brooks - Flower Tokens

While reading a passage in The Original Visions, I found it very interesting the different practices of the Indigenous Peoples. Specifically, the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals buried their dead very cautiously with flowers. They believed these flowers were tokens because they believed the dead should be buried with the beauty they enjoyed on Earth. I thought about this passage and what it meant today. Today, people send flowers out of instinct because it is the "right" thing to do. Many of us see the flowers as a token of sympathy instead of a token as beauty. Some Neanderthals believed the dead would enter a new form existence and the flowers would resonate more than they did in previous life. We have a more broad view today. The funeral takes place with the flowers surrounding the casket. Days past and we begin to throw the flowers away. Why do we not think of flowers as a token of beauty like the Neanderthals? Do people take more things for granted today rather than appreciate what we have?