A Better Place

[babylonsister]

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/a-better-place

Personal History
A Better Place
Why the euphemisms? My father did not “pass.” Neither did he “depart.” He died.
By David Sedaris
August 30, 2021


Doesn’t all our greatest art address the subject of death—its cruelty, its inevitability? The shadow it casts on our all too brief lives? “What does it all mean?” we ask ourselves.

Allow me to tell you: death means that the dinner reservation you made for a party of seven needs to be upped to ten, then lowered to nine, and then upped again, this time to fourteen. Eighteen will ultimately show up, so you will have to sit with people you just vaguely remember at a four-top on the other side of the room, listening as the fun table, the one with your sparkling sister at it, laughs and laughs. Or perhaps you’re all together but not getting your main courses because the chef, who should be in the kitchen, cooking, is getting dressed down by your brother-in-law, who did not care for the soup. Or maybe your party has been split into six groups of three, or three groups of six. While the specifics blur together, there will remain one constant, which is you, having to hear things like “Well, I know that your father did his best.”

snip//

As for my father, if anything, he’s looking up at me, not down. He was ninety-eight. “A blessing,” you keep saying. “He must have been a wonderful man to have been rewarded with such a long life.” As if it worked that way, and extra years were tacked on for good behavior. All kinds of good people die young. You know who’s living a “good long life”? Dick Cheney. Henry Kissinger. Rupert Murdoch.

“He’ll always be with you” is another tiresome chestnut that I’ll be happy never to hear again. In response to it, I say, “What if I don’t want him with me? What if sixty-four years of constant criticism and belittlement was enough, and I’m actually fine with my father and me going our separate ways, him in a cooler at the funeral home and me here at the kids’ table.” He won’t be in his grave for another few days. Is that the “better place” you’ve been assuring me he’s headed to? The cemetery that people pass on their way to the airport? Perhaps a plot with a view of the Roy Rogers or that car wash that went out of business? And what, exactly, is it better than? This restaurant, clearly, but what else? This state? This country? This Earth?

No offense, but how can you be so sure of his whereabouts? You didn’t even know where the men’s room was until I told you, so why should I suddenly believe that you’re omniscient? The best you can say with any degree of certainty is that my father’s in another place, meaning not the one restaurant in town that could accommodate a party of eighteen with five hours’ notice, which, hint, it could do only because nobody else wants to eat here, especially me, only I need to keep my strength up. Because I’m grieving.

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin'

[Frasier Balzov]

2. It can be so awkward to try to comfort people who have lost loved ones.

Knowing this, I vow to always be gracious when anyone makes the effort to comfort me.

[cate94]

3. Oh man

That’s tough. Grief sucks, whoever it belongs to and however damaged the relationship was…

[Rebl2]

4. My father

died a couple of weeks ago. He was in his nineties. It has been sad and troubling to watch his health fail over the past ten years. I did not cry much over his death because I have witnessed the misery he has gone through. I have happy memories of him and am thankful for that. I do not appreciate it when people say oh he lived into his nineties how wonderful. No it wasn’t wonderful. He suffered a lot and it was NOT wonderful to watch him suffer.

[IbogaProject]

5. Koreans say "They Returned"

I was told by a friend who is from Korea they refer to it as "They Returned". And their custom is to throw a party the person would've wanted to attend with a happy and somewhat celebratory theme rather than too much grief.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. So true. I personally have very strong beliefs

in an afterlife, but I would NEVER intend to inflict those belief on anyone else.