Yeah, I think with some people, their occupations, or their reputations, prohibit criticism - even valid criticism. You can’t attack firefighters, or MLK, or Ghandi, or Mother Teresa. (OK, some people do try to attack the last three)
When my mom passed and I had to tell my sister… She was obviously sad. She kept saying how wonderful mom was, etc. I tried to just let it pass, because what good does it do at the time of death to talk about what a horrible person she was? Finally, I just couldn’t not say something. I told her I did not want to tarnish her memories, but my experience was so much different. I mean, there’s a reason my sister moved thousands of miles away and never kept in touch except through me. But I guess at death we want to find something good. I don’t know.
Sounds like my wife’s father. That stinking worthless sack of s**t can’t die fast enough. I’ve been very strongly tempted to help him along, but decided that I would be more useful to my family if I wasn’t spending a life sentence in jail.
It’s pretty rare… maybe impossible… to not feel something of genuine grief for the loss of someone important in our lives. Our emotional wiring is, pretty much by definition, not rational. So I could imagine an impulse to ease the conflict between “I’m grieving” and “he doesn’t deserve it” by softening the latter in order to justify the (inevitable) former.
We can change our minds, even if we have to change the facts to do so. But it’s much more difficult to really change our feelings.
From here…
*Leslie Ray “Popeye” Charping died Jan. 30 of cancer. He was 74, a veteran and a former Navy boxing champion who lived in south Texas.
<snip>
Charping was arrested several times during his life, according to Harris County court records. His first conviction came in 1979 when he pleaded guilty to assault.
He also pleaded guilty in 2008 to assaulting a family member by pouring hot liquid on his then-wife of 40 years. The next year he pleaded guilty to violating the resulting restraining order by calling another family member and threatening to kill her, the Chronicle reported.*
I’ve zero inclination not to take the poor woman at her word. I hope her likely determination to treat any children she may have in a dissimilar manner results in a loving home for some kid(s).
My dad is a retired firefighter. They’re all human.
One of his best friends from the force died a couple years ago. Many years ago, he and his wife divorced, “and she turned the kids against him and he never saw them again.” Bullhockey; the kids were teenagers. :smack: They knew what he was really like.
I probably met this man at some point but don’t recall it if I did.
This guy was a physician? If he was, whaddya bet he was the type who abused nurses, stole drugs, had multiple malpractice suits (settled or not), etc.
Actually, yes. It takes guts to lay the truth out like that.
I don’t think it was right. If she had publicly aired her grievances against him when he was alive, that would be different or if she spoke about him in a different venue. But I don’t think someone’s obituary should be allowed to be a giant vomit on them for someone else. It was undignified, in my opinion.
In her original piece, she states that he spent considerable time in a mental hospital and throws that at him like a misdeed of his. But sometimes when someone is seriously mentally ill, they aren’t to blame for their actions, however horrible, and the fault can really lie with a system who allowed them freedom when they were a danger to themselves or others, or with individuals who could have intervened but did not.
In her original piece, she also mentioned something about dumping his ashes in a barn with a donkey. To me, that’s not quite as disgusting as desecration of a corpse but it’s close.
There wasn’t any room at the inn.