Thursday, January 4, 2007

Exalting in Death

If you would believe all the things said about former President Gerald Ford over the past week, you'd think he was about ready to be canonized. The man has been presented as a saint above saints and one might surmise that a seat next to the Big Guy is in order.

Yes, Jerry Ford was a decent man, but he suffered from the same foibles as the rest of us. None of us is perfect in life...or death.

The ruminations on the life of Mr. Ford are not atypical. In fact, I'd say they're really run-of-the-mill. Every time a soldier dies in the Iraq War, we hear the same kind of laudatory language. Every time someone dies as the result of freak accident or heinous crime, we're told this person was the sweetest, kindest, most generous person ever to grace the face of the earth.

I'm not suggesting that loved ones and/or pundits spew forth with every skeleton in the deceased person's closet and I'm also not suggesting that the public be presented with a laundry list of each person's misdeeds. That said, I would just like some realistic balance.

More importantly, if a person is going to wax romantic over a loved one in death, I'm betting the deceased would have loved to have heard more of this kind of sentiment in life.

And let's be honest here. It's far easier to bestow saintly characteristics on a memory than it is to bestow the same on a living person who might not always behave or speak in a manner you agree with or make the kinds of decisions you would have made.

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