Nice essay by David Sedaris about how people process the death of someone they might not have not known very well but still want to be polite about. In our desire to be kind and generous to the departed, we may easily overlook the reality of that person's life the way those closest to him know it to be. A close friend of my family died a few years ago leaving behind his wife and two adult children. No one appeared to care that the man was gone. Many of us who knew him socially thought he was a nice guy who made everyone feel welcome to his home. There were many that recalled good times they had together, the acts of kindness and generosity that they had been recipients of.
Having nothing of substance to contribute, I listened to what others had to say. But I did not fail to notice the stoic indifference of his wife and kids to all of this - they really wanted to get the whole thing over and to get on with their lives. The home was completely remodeled in a few months, like they had gutted out every shred of his presence from it and given it a brand new definition. The wife looked younger and happier, the kids carried on their independent lives.
He was missed as much as a cup of water from a river, and that was how much impact he seemed to have made by his passing. Whatever the skeletons in the cupboard, all of us who knew him clearly did not know enough but at his funeral many among us went to great lengths to remember their best memories of him - just like Sedaris describes in his essay. Did his family grieve his passing? Maybe they did in their own way, knowing as much of his darkness as they did his light. Whatever the rest of us did or felt was likely not real.
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