I am continually fascinated by how people's lives, once dead, can be sanitized to the extreme where you wonder whom the obituary is talking about. Or whom the article or book was written about.
A friend dropped off a magazine for me to read as it featured her father, a brave Norwegian sea captain who saved many lives during WW2 and had a full chest-load of heavy beribboned medals to prove it.
She has shared much of her father's story with me. None of it good. For instance he moved to St. John's after the war and married her mother. He forgot to mention that he was also married in Oslo.
He was a man who was into the swinging lifestyle in a major way and her and her three siblings' childhoods were warped by the mad drunken key-swapping parties in their house.
His first wife tracked him down when my friend was around twelve and he was yanked back to Norway to parent the two children he had had there. He never returned to St. John's.
My friend tracked him down when she was twenty-one so she could introduce him to her infant daughter.
He was pleasant and polite, she told me, but very disinterested in her life and baby. She was introduced to wife number one but this woman had no English so she wondered what lies he told her to account for my friend's presence in their home.
Needless to mention, wife number one is not mentioned in this glorifying article, just the second wife and her four children.
And I know several such immaculate life stories far, far removed from the dark underbelly of truth.
How about you? Know any?
Sadly yes. I think it is justified? by the 'don't speak ill of the dead' thing which I fail to understand. I see no more reason to paint the actions of the dead in rosy colours than I do the living...
ReplyDeleteI think it an enormous disservice EC as we can't help but think how on earth did we go so wrong when we compare with such perfection? Having said that, I love the honest obits but they are rare as hen's teeth.
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Like EC wrote, it must go back to not speaking ill of the dead. What are the origins for that? I would bet it has something to do with the Christian religion. After all, aren't we weekly cleansed of our sins if we attend confession?
ReplyDeleteMea culpa stuff, obviously all is forgiven come home to father stuff with your sparkling soul. Right on Andrew.
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I can think of some family members that have been "sanitzied". This guy sounds like a real douchebag! But then there are many like him.
ReplyDeleteTotally, I've omitted other awful stuff this paragon of virtue war hero did. He left a very damaged family behind.
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P.S. I am finalizing our NL itinerary and I will email you and we can hopefully plan a gettogether!
ReplyDeleteGreat news Jackie, it would be lovely to meet in the meat so to speak.
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My own brother had a life that needed sanitizing and it didn't happen. Without too much detail, it involved too many women, too many children, some dear, some less, and one total unknown who appeared at his funeral. But I'm not speaking ill of him; he was decent father to all of them.
ReplyDeleteJoanne, that is incredible, some guys do get away with it. Until they die. One friend of mine was shocked recently when her son total her he had fathered children hither and yon with different mothers. But he was in touch with all of them (8 at last count).
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I'm off track a little but when my aunt died, her son said she had not always been treated well by "men". He was really only referring to her abusive husband but I was annoyed because my father, grandfather and husband had all been good to her
ReplyDeleteInteresting how her treatment got skewed so badly to include those who had been so good to her.
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I know some of my mother's story, she of the pants-chasing habits, who gave me three brothers, all with different fathers and none of them my father. But there was no funeral, no eulogy, she requested cremation, so that's what we gave her.
ReplyDeleteOh that's very interesting River, I wonder what your mother's childhood was like to make her who she was. Shrouded in the mists of time?
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An only child she was unwanted and unloved by her own mother who had never wanted children and Mum was born and kept only because her father insisted. Often sent to stay with aunties after school etc.
DeleteMy own grandfather had a lot to answer for…..all discovered well after he died. Cousins doing research then my DNA results providing several surprises. Named on a couple of birth certs. he wasn’t a father to them (or any others that may appear). Never mind sailors having girls in every port - so did serving well ranked soldiers
ReplyDeleteOh wow Cathy, he was a bit of a lothario, I would think. To put it nicely. I heard wild stories from an uncle, an RAF officer, some involving the Duke of Edinburgh in Malta. And his obit was sanitized.
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I can write volumes about some relatives who are heroes to the outside world but, zeroes within our family.
ReplyDeleteWe call them street angels and house devils in Ireland, Ramana, my father being one of them.
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That must have been very stressful for both wives. JFK was a promiscuous philanderer and yet everybody thinks highly of him, except me. Gigi hawaii
ReplyDeletePower corrupts absolutely Gigi. And predators are predators. Look at your last prez. Most of them have been unfortunately.
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The nothing but good about the dead ones ... it's old greek or latin 'wisdom' stemming back to at least the 5 century BC. That we still follow it can only wonder.
ReplyDeleteI suppose slander and libel come into it too Charlotte. but I find it hard to get around some of them knowing the hard cold ugly facts of their lives.
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PS: And I wonder ... always when people talk about men having many wives the reaction is like yours here:"that is incredible, some guys do get away with it. Until they die."
ReplyDeleteAnd when a woman has many men they say like you here: "I wonder what her childhood was like to make her who she was."
I don't like anybody having many spouses, men or women. But when they do, they are both responsible for their actions women and men alike.
I have no trouble with others having all the spouses they want but the judgement around behaviors is something else. It takes two to tango, as they say, and sometimes one of the partners wants a different dance or has been abused, etc. It's the abusers who make me sick, especially the paedophiles being praised to high heaven.
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I guess it all depend on who tells the story how it gets told. Perhaps they want to protect some of the innocent living from public judging if all the truth were told. Maybe in private those to whom it would really matter know the truth and for anyone else why must they be told?
ReplyDeleteGood point Joared. I guess my gaskets get truly blown with the evil ones who have buildings named for them and children forced to live with the knowledge that the obit was far from the abuse they experienced. It does some heads in.
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I suspect the whitewashing is to protect the living - from embarrassment and shame.
ReplyDeleteOh no doubt, Jadie, but that doesn't make it acceptable when those nasty ones are never held responsible for their crimes. I did like how one family handled their philandering father. Threw him in the ground, no obit and no headstone. And 15 years later no regrets. He got his just desserts.
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I've lost count of the number of violent criminals and the like who are said to have been quiet, decent individuals until they suddenly "went bad". I bet they always had violent and anti-social tendencies but their families keep quiet about that.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely anon. I know of one recently who murdered his wife, his two little children and her best friend in a fit of jealousy who was referred to as a "loving son."
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Oops, not anonymous.
ReplyDeleteGosh this blogger butt-ins make our lives hell, Nick.
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I have often wondered this myself. My mother was an instigator of hate, only happy when she was meddling in someone's life and causing grief. She peed on her own mother's grave and stole all the flowers. Mostly I survived by removing myself from her life. She had a horrible childhood by all accounts, but my Daddy was the most loyal and patient man. She was mean to him, instead of choosing to appreciate the life he gave her, she carried bitter hatred about her past. I don't hate her, I feel sorry for her, but not enough to sugar coat her actions while she was alive.
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