How to act at a wake.

[Colleen Thomas]

I'm a little slow HS. Here are my collected posts from that thread. Exactly what lie did I tell?

My collected posts from the thread:

Former president Regan died today. He was the first president I remember well and admired to pass.

-Colly

The published reports say he had passed the point where even Nancy could reach him. My heart goes out to them, watching a loved one succumb to Alzheimers is awful.

He was my president, just as Truman was my grandfather's. The man I think of when the word president is mentioned.

-Colly

Thanks Sher, I know he wasn't one of your favorite presidents. I really appreciate the flower.

*HUGS*

-Colly
There are certain standards of behavior that civilized human beings subscribe to. They aren't universal. There is no written law that codifies them, nor should there be. It's simple courtesy. The kind you extend to other people in moments of sadness or need.

People who do not undrestand or subscribe to these unwritten codes are beyond my ken. I can only say, that if he made enemies of people with this little class, then he must have been doing something right. Their epitath's are perhaps the most ringing endorsement he could have. A man is judged by his enemies. If these are the kinds of enemies he made, then the judgement can only be that he was a good man.

-Colly


Now, I happen to know this board is full of liberals. I happen to know also that RR is not a favorite among them. I didn't Eulogize. I didn't push for beatification, coronation or deifcation. Exactly what lie did I tell, that you found so awful here that stomping on my grief was justified?

-Colly

 

[KarenAM]

My feeling is that this comes down to a conflict between the desire to be right (as in "winning" the arguments that regularly rage on threads here; just take a look at the Bush thread) versus the desire to be kind.

I'll gladly point out my objections to Reagan or Clinton or Genghis Khan, but only in the appropriate forum.

A place where someone is grieving is not that forum; that's a place where kindness matters most.

 

[sweetnpetite]

The "respect for the dead" thing is not completely applicable here.

Ronald Reagan was at one point one of the most powerful people in the world, responsible (depending on your point of view) for the well-being or suffering of millions of people.

What he represented, and the position he held, are way, way, more important than what he was like as a human being. Like Ghandi, Kennedy, Stalin, De Gaulle, Churchill or Hitler (compared to which Raegan was obviously pretty small potatoes) it's the death of a world leader that people mourn or celebrate, not just a man.


Edited to add: John Cleese at his good friend Graham Chapman's funeral:

I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun.

Well, I feel that I should say, "Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard! I hope he fries. "

The difference is that he was a friend, and he said it in the right spirit. Some probably found it offensive, while others probably 'got it' but I'm pretty certain that he didn't mean it malisciously.