I have always hated obituaries, for reasons that have nothing to do with death. First of all, they never tell you how someone died. People do not just die; they die of something and should that not be an integral part of a death announcement? I am not sure if we are so afraid of death that we dare not name its allies and thus realize our own mortality or if we think it impolite or traumatic to speak of the cause of death. When an elderly person dies, it is usually something medically related and the cause not so surprising, but one always wonders what tragic event caused the demise of a young adult or a child. It is like an unfinished story, something that will forever frustrate our attempts at closure and full understanding.
The other problem I find with these brief synopses of a human life is their lack of truth. Everyone dies a much beloved saint, at least according to their obituaries. While it may be of some comfort to the survivors to say all the great things that were or were not accomplished by the dearly departed, this exaggeration does little to tell the full story of a human life. Anyone who has ever lived will tell you, no one's life was all sunshine and roses; no one has ever lived so perfectly as their obituary proclaims. Where there is joy there is also sorrow; where there is life so too is there death. It is the way of things in this fallen sphere. We do not understand a story with no suffering, no trials, no struggles. We turn our loved ones into a mere caricature of themselves and no longer believe that they ever truly lived. This does a great disservice to their memory and the struggles they have survived or overcome. It is boring!
I do not encourage gossip or passing along every misdeed or sin perpetrated by the deceased, but if their tale is to be told, it should be the full tale. Here lived a man who was saint as well as sinner. Here was a woman who lived and breathed and had a being. We are not cartoon characters, but people who truly live! No one reads a book or watches a movie written like that, why do we expect our own lives to be summed up so vapidly? Sure, it sounds great to remember the dead in such undreamed perfection, but everyone who knew the person knows they never lived that way and no one else really cares, especially the deceased! So why lie to ourselves and everyone else? Why belittle the lives of those we loved? We need not speak ill of the dead, but neither need we lie about them. Instead, let us live lives worthy of recording and remembering, instead of lying about and exaggerating our meager, drab lives in hopes someone may remember or care.
Why all these grim reflections? Why focus on such a strange piece of literature? Life is a story and every story has an end. I was reminded of this very recently when one that should be dear to me became gravely ill and I wondered how his obituary might read. This reflection was quite disturbing, for it will tell a tale that never was. It will never mention the torment and shame he inflicted on others, the lives he ruined, the hearts he broke. Nor will it dwell upon his own lonely, miserable life. But this is the tragic tale, his legacy. And Heaven help him when he must stand before God and give an account of himself, for we shall not be judged by the contents of our obituary but by our every thought, action, and deed. Have we lived a life where we will not be ashamed on that Day? Our deeds cannot save us, but they can prove us good and faithful servants to Him who can. You are in the middle of your own story, how will it end?
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