The way we judge the dead
is harsh, unrelenting,
and oh so pious.
“She lived too fast,
She played too hard,
She lived her life out of control.
Her death was inevitable.
A tragedy, but not a surprise
Tut, tut
Tsk tsk…”
Really? Really?!?
This deep seated need to
judge
from our glass houses,
and cast stones at corpses
is not about them,
rather it is about us…
The old joke goes,
the only certainties in
life are
death and taxes
and we all laugh
uncomfortably.
But we laugh
We laugh at death,
pushing it just a bit
further away from us.
Who among us, I ask you,
will not die?
Not me.
Not you.
Or you.
Or you.
Could we, then, in the
time we have here,
be kinder to the dead
and let the lessons of
their lives simply be?
Leave their families to
their grief
without the added burden of our
fears voiced in the form
of vilification and
verdicts about their loved ones?
Instead, could we,
perhaps,
make the most of our
summers,
swinging on fragrant
willow boughs,
leaping fearlessly into
the lake, and
gorging ourselves on
life’s bounty
so that maybe, just maybe,
we’ll fear death a little
less
and let the dead
Be
allowing them to rest
in the cradle of our
peace.
~ Mk Michaels, 2012
