By Ben Fassett
Staff Writer
Obituaries lie to you.
Mine will probably tell you about how well I lived. It’ll
talk about how I was a Lancaster resident for nearly all of my life with a keen
sense of perception, and how I was a fun-loving, energetic young man. Maybe
it’ll tell you about some of my exploits – a cross section of little
accomplishments that might not amount to much, but which will help define me as
a person for you. It’ll finally take a turn for the mournful when it tells you
how I was mauled by a mountain lion, crushed by an oncoming train, or
tragically taken far too young by my love of autoerotic asphyxiation or my
penchant for hookers and cocaine in some seedy hotel room off of Sierra
Highway.
I am not an advocate of either of those things, by the way.
It’ll only be a vague picture, though. Maybe you’ll see a
photograph of me trying to smile, looking awkward and slightly puzzled about
being dead. Maybe the words will be so high-spirited and complimentary that I
won’t seem dead at all. Maybe I was just some swell guy who happened to earn
some inches in the local paper, only to have them accidentally put in the
obituary column.
I’m not that nice, though. I’m not a swell guy, and you
probably aren’t either.
Sometimes, if you are lucky, you’ll come across an obituary
that talks about the dearly deceased’s “demons.” These are usually vague
references to substance abuse or prison sentences.
I don’t feel comfortable hearing about a man’s good deeds
without an equal hearing for his bad.
It always seemed to me that the best way to honor the dead
is to recognize the whole person. Think about the greatest people in history
and how they are portrayed. Henry VIII was a powerful monarch who managed
to reshape the British Empire in the face of mountainous adversities. He also
had some marital issues. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created music in his childhood,
and helped innovate polyphonic techniques that endure to this day. He was also
a fan of toilet humor. Teddy Roosevelt became the President of the United States by
being a badass, and gave a speech after getting shot by an insane New York
saloon-keeper. Today, PETA would have a heart attack over all of the animals he
killed so enthusiastically.
These are the people who helped shape our world, and they
weren’t saints. Neither are you.
I am not interested in your grandfather’s stamp collections
if I don’t hear about his alcoholism, too. You cannot respect the long hours
Aunt Lillith spent wiping the brows of malaria patients in Panama without
respecting her willingness to flip her skirts up for the first sailor she saw.
I want to know these things. You want to know these things. Do you really want
your loved ones remembered as though they were a china doll, without substance
or fault beyond the pale veneer you’ve managed to paint them in?
Do you really want the most human parts of you kept a
secret?
Tell me how you want to be remembered.
