This is such bullshit. My older brother died when he was a baby (in 1988), and every year on his birthday, we would all sing happy birthday and release a balloon... until about 2000 when my parents were like 'oh, this is probably bad' and we changed the tradition. We still dorkily sing happy birthday but now we blow bubbles up. My mother never fully recovered from his death, and for both my parents it is a seismically important day every year, but 20 YEARS AGO realised that their tradition needed to change. So tacky for her to deflect criticism by latching onto hypothtical grieving people....and by saying people need to be gentle with others when crticising the act of letting off balloons as some people do it for memorials... Hmm... let's not try and detract.