In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Linda Loman's anguished cry for help -- in which she begs, indeed demands respect and recognition for her dead husband, Willy Loman -- is instructive in how we treat the living amongst us
"I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy... no, a lot of people think he's lost his... balance. But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He works for a company thirty-six years this March, opens up unheard-of territories to their trademark, and now in his old age they take his salary away."
Linda, being all-too-aware of Willy's shortcomings in life, appears to, nonetheless, portray her departed husband as a caring father struggling to provide for his family
"Are they any worse than his sons? When he brought them business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But now his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some order to hand him in a pinch--they're all dead, retired. He used to be able to make six, seven calls a day in Boston. Now he takes his valises out of the car and puts them back and takes them out again and he's exhausted. Instead of walking he talks now. He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn't he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me that it's his pay? How long can that go on? How long? You see what I'm sitting here and waiting for? And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get the medal for that?"
We see the ritual repeated every time we hear of an unexpected death. So shocking is the news that it perhaps softens our perceptions of the recently departed soul. Heaping praise upon and recounting the finer moments of a dead person's life is what is expected out of us. It is an important part of our culture. We are taught at a young age "not to speak ill of the dead." If you don't have anything nice to say about your dead father/uncle/aunt/cousin, don't say anything, we are reminded often by our elders. None of which I find either offensive or particularly troublesome.
It does, however, raise the obvious question: if a person appears to be a moral giant once dead, deserving as they might be of all the kudos and accolades directed towards them, were they not the same person a few moments prior when still breathing normally? If they were, did we acknowledge it too?
William Shakespeare addressed it brilliantly through the words of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar...
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!
Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Why then do we not recognize the deeds of our living compatriots? Is it the case, implicit in Linda Loman's appeal to our better senses, that one has to die to gain either much-deserved recognition or fame in our society? Do the dead have a monopoly on respect? If so, what have living souls done to not be deserving of equal recognition?
Death brings a finality that few other things do. To invoke Yogi Berra, "it's over." There are no more tomorrows. Yesterdays are all we are left to deal with. Were they all good and none deemed to be wasted? Animus is rarely a part of nostalgia, so it seems.
In one sense, it is also not real. There aren't any more saints amongst the dead than there are sinners dominating the living around us. Yet, in our tributes we somehow ignore or minimize that fact. Generosity of spirit, basic decency, and compassion compels it out of us.
So, what then about the living amongst us? Do they too have to die to get their due in life? In Charles Dickens's 'A Tale of Two Cities,' Sidney Carton acknowledges (to some degree) the allure of death when about to be sent to the guillotine
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
Did he really feel this way or is it a case for rationalizing the choice Carton has made? I think it might be the latter for he wants to justify his sacrifice for the woman he loves.
As I read Tom Shales' terrific column in the Washington Post about Tim Russert's death, I kept asking myself, "Did I see these qualities in Russert when he was still alive?" I'm fairly sure I did but never quite found it necessary to articulate them. There were no compelling reasons to do so. Connecting the dots is usually done after one passes away.
Just a few thoughts and questions that raced through my mind as I reflected upon another untimely and premature death.