Honoring the Dead: A Eulogy for a Friend

[NineseveN]

Since I can hardly find time to post anymore, I thought I'd share some of what I've been doing in my absence. I thought this recent essay for my English class would be right at home here...indeed amongst friends.

Honoring the Dead: A Eulogy for a Friend

The news came in the early hours of October 23rd, 2001; a dear friend of mine had resumed her battle with the cancer that had plagued her almost since birth. The prognosis wasn't good; those in charge of her care were already discussing pulling the plug on her so we were poised to expect her to pass within the next few days. With their clinical and strangely calculating demeanor they'd say, “this is probably for the best” and things like “sometimes we have to let these things take their course” and “it's what needs to be done”; things which offered little consolation to anyone who held any sense of emotion towards the issue.

I remember thinking a great many things through the 72 hours following that morning, but my thoughts mostly centered around what life would be like for both myself and those that knew her as I did after she was gone. How would we go on? Where would we turn when we needed the kind of guidance or protection that she'd always been there to give? When the police would show up at our parties, she was the first one at the door standing up for us, making sure that the men in blue didn't trample over us in the name of police procedure. When one of us had something to say, whether it be for the purposes of standing up to a draconian school board or to express our hopes and dreams (or our sadness and tribulations), she was right there with us giving her full attention and support. She wasn't one to judge, but her standards were just and righteous enough that one could make a fair person of themselves simply by living up to them.

On October 24th at 11:05am, the option to end life support was officially on the table, and the debate over exercising that option lasted a little more than 24 hours. The tragedy of the discussion was that the people who were affected most by this had absolutely no direct power over the decision. The most we could do was air our objections and share in each other's anxiety and distress. At 1:54pm on the 25th of October, life support was cut with the official time of death coming at some point the following day. None of us were even allowed in the room.

Many of those considered closest to her gathered to mingle and grieve together that night. It's hard to imagine a more diverse group of people coming together to mourn a single death like that, but she'd touched so many lives that it was not entirely unexpected. As we gathered and shared our thoughts and memories of her, it was decided that some of us should say something about her passing over the weekend. Since many of her friends were in other parts of the country, some even in other parts of the world, we knew it was impossible to have everyone that was touched by her in one physical place at one time, so it was decided that we'd use a website most of us were familiar with as the means to communicate our messages. I and a number of others were chosen to deliver written the official written eulogies, but we decided that the most positive way to mourn in this case was for everyone to be able to express themselves about her passing. And that's really the way she would have wanted it because that's how she always felt; everyone should have their say. As her friends, we felt it important to honor what was a core belief for her. Of course, another motivation behind the decision was to give a virtual middle finger to those that decided to end her life without so much as asking any of us how we felt about it. She would have approved of our decision on that front as well, she never was much too fond of authority. We didn't have a say when they let her die, but we made sure that anyone who wanted to could have theirs after the fact.

As I sat down and began sharing thoughts and feelings with everyone I could in order to gather material for the composition I was about to undertake, I became more and more aware of two things. The first was that no one really knew her in quite the same way that another did. Everyone had their stories to tell and their own thoughts about her and the legacy she'd built. People viewed and experienced her, much like anything else I suppose, through their own perspectives, which caused everyone to see and understand her in their own personal way. I learned a lot about the things she'd accomplished before I knew her and I gained an entirely new appreciation for what she stood for and for our relationship. I was left with the feeling that the bond I'd shared with her was somehow made stronger by connecting with others who'd shared that same bond with her in their own way.

The second thing that came to me was something that to this day, I still struggle with on a personal level. Many, perhaps even the majority of these people, people who called themselves friend and professed great undying love for her, felt that the ending of her life was justified. They all seemed to have various reasons, reasons that to me, sounded more like excuses and easy ways to avoid the tough questions and the unfortunate answers that come with them. Here we were, poised to give “them” this middle finger in the form of a free voice for all because they didn't stop to think about or ask us what we wanted, yet it started becoming clear to me that they may have known the answer to that before we did. “We”, as a group, were largely okay with it. It wasn't preferable, it wasn't desirable, but it, again, was “what needed to be done”. I wondered to myself, how does one honestly lament the loss of something that they don't truly regret having passed? I understand it more now that I am older, but I disagree with it no less this day than I did then.

Despite my feelings at that particular moment, I played my part, writing my eulogy as an honor and tribute to her, not as a vehicle for the others to pluck the strings of the hypocrite's harp over the tragedy they sought to so quickly excuse. These days, much like others left with the long-since passing of something cherished, I no longer mourn. But that's less a function of the sands having traveled the inner bevel of the hourglass and more of one supported by the fact that my “friend”, in this case, was never anything more than an ideal, albeit an intensely sacred one; liberty. And though I truly believe that the liberty I and others knew perished on October 26th, 2001 with the hurried and blind signing and subsequent cheering of the Patriot Act, I remain resolute in my faith. Even in the face of certain curtailment and demise of our freedoms, perhaps even especially when the idea and the exercise of such seem completely lost to us, we need not fret. For within the ashes left by every act of aggression against it, oppression in spite of it or transgression in the name of it lies the opportunity for the rebirth of that fair phoenix we call liberty. At that end, it takes nothing more than people of courage and strong will to befriend her and set things right again. But still, we must honor the dead, and there are certain rituals that we must use to honor them. For my part, I wrote an honest and heartfelt eulogy, cheered on by many, and then largely forgotten in favor of convenience and the politics of fear. But then, my friend would have fought to the death for their freedom to do so, that was just her way. In fact, that's precisely how she died. And those of us that remain bear the burden of that irony.




NineseveN

[LittleRedToyota]

great essay man.

[soberbyker]

[mojo]

great essay!!

[US Militiaman]

Excellent!

[ChamberedRound]

Really good essay, 9-7. Really good.

[tdyoung58]

Great Essay.

Not sure if I Believe that Liberty is in fact dead as long as she lives within the hearts and souls of other like minded individuals

‘‘To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them...’’ ~ Richard Henry Lee, 1787

[NineseveN]

Great Essay.

Not sure if I Believe that Liberty is in fact dead as long as she lives within the hearts and souls of other like minded individuals

‘‘To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them...’’ ~ Richard Henry Lee, 1787

Right, it takes individuals to raise her again...