Remembering the dead

These days, it seems like we are surrounded by death. I hesitate in saying these days because it seems like it has been our companion for the past ten years. However, I think it has grown in its universality. With the pandemic, it has become harder to avoid it as an issue or even a talking subject. Upon meeting anyone, it has become normal to survey the death count of distant relatives and close friends. If that is not enough, we also have freak accidents and different injustices to increase the mounting death count.

It has become a burgeoning trend to post on social media about the death of strangers who succumbed to the world's injustice. Attached to the post is often a picture of the deceased, usually the best picture that can be found. Along with the picture is the description of the injustice that occurred that managed to rob us of one more person, and at the end a small bio of the person. I think the bio is the most interesting part. Words such as successful, young, energetic or beautiful are often dotted along the bio. As if we can't grieve the loss unless it is of someone productive. 

In an age where everything is based upon fleeting reactions and disingenuous emotions, we have manged to make even death a competition. The younger, the more beautiful, and the more successful the dead are, the more likely for them to receive the sympathy of others. We have become such misers with our emotions that we only give it to those whom society deems worthy. 

So, where do the rejected come to play? They don't. We never grieve them or sympathize with them. They are often a footnote in society's list of things to engage with. The rejected, the unloved, the discarded are just that, even in death. If they manage to hold on to our collective attention for more than a second, they only summon our pity, and nothing else. Maybe a generous reader would add a slow shake of the head, but nothing more.

It is disheartening to find prejudice in death, but it is also human. We only care about those who are similar to us. We see ourselves in them. We feel what they feel. We find in them our end, and our catharsis. It is illogical to demand or even ask for anything else. It has been like that since the beginning of time. We even accept god because we are supposed to be made in his image. Would we not accept him otherwise? Who knows?