Dead Man Talking

I love a well-written obituary, one that leaves me with a vivid image of the person, a sense of that person's life. A well-written obituary seldom requires an accompanying photo, so descriptive are the words that follow. Obituaries are odd beasts, though. Marking both a life lived and a life no longer, they often are inadequate bookends to a tale far too long to be told in five column inches.

Sometimes, what is left out is as revealing as the stories that occupy the space. And those omissions can feel like sins to people who knew that person well. It makes sense, I suppose, that, if given only so much space, those in charge of telling the tale hit the highlights, the shiny moments, and overlook the shadows.

Those shadows, though, often hold the deeper meaning, the back stories that tell a more complete tale. Given their warts-and-all nature, though, I guess it's understandable that family members would prefer to iron them over or erase them entirely from the inky trails of last stories told.

Their omission from newsprint, though, does not remove them from life.

And so, today, I think about survivors, both familial and otherwise. I think about stories not told, about hurt crammed deep beneath the surface, yet barely held at bay. I think about accolades and spotlight moments, about mute audience members who know a seedier side, one most certainly not deserving of praise. About secrets kept. Power wrongly expressed. About trust that is lost and lives that are left broken in that wake.

What do these people do, as they scan the glowing recollections? How do they deal with old hurts, bubbling up again in the privacy of their own thoughts? Is it wrong to speak ill of the dead? Is there a secret sense of relief at the passing of that person, or just old wounds left to fester again?

Dying, it seems, is as complicated as living. And obituaries? Just incomplete recollections of a human life lived in some combination of glory and shame.