Roses In The Hospital

As I recall Richey was briefly hospitalised by either his management team or record label. I'm sure I remember reading, or perhaps it was in one of the interviews Richey gave on his own to an interviewer in Japan, that while he was in hospital his manager or the label sent him some roses. He said the words Roses in the hospital were a metaphor for how some people treat others suffering depression or other mental illness. They send flowers as a token, symbolic gesture because they can't handle dealing with someone's unhappiness or depression, it makes them uneasy. I believe Richey said that the Roses just made him feel more isolated, made him feel useless and a burden to the band. He also said that he watched day by day as the roses decayed and wilted; he felt that was symbolic of how he felt in the hospital, cut from life, like a rose from a bush, and put in an artificial support system in a psyche ward, like the roses in a vase of water. Like the roses decaying and dying he felt the hospital was draining him and adding to his decay. He wanted to make the point that people are generally in hospital because they are unwell and metaphorically or even literally wasting away and decaying and that it's ironic that people think that it might cheer a patient up to have a beautiful flower severed from its natural life support system and placed in a vase so they can watch it slowly die. He also wanted to make the point that people often can't deal with a person being ill so they send flowers. The rose become a decaying symbol of our human frailty, fear and existential isolation.