Views on After-Death Adulation

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 15, 1960


   IT IS FITTING to speak well of the departed but too bad that a person has to be dead to be fully appreciated. There is an innate reluctance to dispense compliments, even though the practice enriches both giver and receiver. But when tragedy strikes, flattering words flow--to come into flood with death.
   This is regrettable but probably understandable. If  you go around praising the living it isn't because you're a nice fellow but because you have an angle. You are currying favor with the boss, contemplate running for assessor or becoming president of the PTA. So, not wishing to appear insincere and being loath to be gracious, you keep your mouth shut and don't tell Joe how well Gertrude thinks he dances.

   BUT THE hypocrisy apparent in a lot of post-mortem adulation is both galling and amusing. Certain people, when someone dies, should, to be consistent, keep their eyes dry and their mouths shut. I don't refer to survivors or close friends but to persons who knew the deceased only casually and who seek to impress survivor or friend with displays of sham sorrow.
   Since free speech is a constitutional right even when indulged in behind the back, most of us have done our share of belittling and insulting. "There is nothing to Joe, really," we'll say, "but a thick hide, brass and monumental ego. He'd push his own mother out into the storm for a dollar and wouldn't give you the time of day."
   It comes with poor grace, then, when Joe dies, to dab the eyes and tell everyone what a dear friend you've lost.

   WHEN IT comes to mourning, however, I'm tops among the flops, which may account for the fact that I hold many weepers and lamenters suspect. I can't even manage a tear when honestly grief-stricken.
   This can't be attributed to stoicism, either. I often get dewy-eyed at sticky movies, hymns frequently shatter me, and when the kids were small I sometimes choked up, to their amusement, when reading them touching passages from "The Jungle Book" or "Black Beauty."

   THE FASTEST person I ever knew--male or female--with a funeral tear was the undertaker of years ago in my home town. Old Charley was the salt of the earth and no hypocrite, either. He was quite a jolly man when not engaged in his profession.
   But all aspects of his business saddened him beyond belief. He apparently thought that his tears solaced the survivors. For the fee involved he gave them a package deal. He not only was funeral director but paid mourner, and he mourned with convincing earnestness as part of his job.
   Death was a frequent visitor at our house in those days and though in the years since then we've laughed about old Charley, I remember him fondly. His conduct had some merit, too. He provided a macabre comic relief as he
sniffled about.
   He had this in his favor, too. He never spoke meanly of the living.


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