Ten days ago, my best friend's daughter's ex-boyfriend died. The young woman had dated the man for four years, and had only "moved on" about six months ago, remaining friends. Truly.
Worse yet, it is still not known whether the young man died by accident, or was murdered. He was found crushed to death under a service elevator in a parking garage a block from the White House.
No, he had nothing to do with the U.S. government, so it's useless looking to politics for an answer. Possibly it was gangs; the rise of indigenous gangs and branches of the Bloods and Crips has recently been well documented in Washington, DC.
The young man--who had danced at my own wedding three years ago, putting him slightly closer than "acquaintance" on two counts--was a legal alien from Peru, working as a manager at a major corporation, seeking U.S. citizenship. He had just gotten his master's degree, had decided to return to sports by joining a kickball team, and was altogether not someone who would ordinarily die as the result of misadventure. The D.C. police have, however, begun seriously to investigate and have made some noises that give hope that whoever did it will be caught.
Tomorrow night, the young man's interment service will be followed by a reception at his alma mater, and in lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations to a scholarship established in his name.
I write this not by way of causing referred sadness. I write it as an introduction, sadly come to hand, for a discussion of appropriate and inappropriate memorials.
The memorial for this young man is completely appropriate. It will offend no one. It will allow those who must to grieve; it will allow friends to comfort the grief-stricken. It will remember the man in a useful and generous way, a giving way.
Bogus Grief
Inappropriate are the tawdry flowers, scrawled messages on warping wooden sticks and molding teddy bears placed where unfortunate humans have run off an American roadway. Just this morning, where a young man had died in a single-car accident two miles from my house last week, I noticed a dumpster's worth of already-fading teddy bears, hearts drawn on the trees, "We love you!" signs and other detritus that will remain for years, since superstitious humans are terrified to desecrate what someone claims, licitly or illicitly, as a sacred site. Eventually, the so-called tribute to the dead driver will become an eyesore, if it isn't indeed both an eyesore and a heart-sore already to his true friends and family.
The Diana Syndrome
This sort of bogus show of sympathy first caught my eye some considerable time after the death of Princess Diana. I happened to be in Paris in early November of 1998. Hurrying back to my hotel one Sunday morning after the winter rains had set in, I saw a crowd gathered at the end of a street I hadn't walked down before. The journalist in me got the best of me, and I walked toward the gathering. It was quite large, perhaps 100 people, some of them in tears, others snapping flash photos in the gloom. I elbowed in. What I saw astonished me. There, around an "eternal flame" erected above the tunnel in which Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed had suffered the fatal crash, were probably thousands of rain-soaked silk flowers, teddy bears, collages, notes...god-knows-what about four feet deep and a few feet high.
I thought Princess Diana's death was a tragedy for many reasons, not least of which is the pall it cast over the Royals. I'm not a Royals fanatic, far from it. But I realized that the controversy over their involvement or lack thereof would go on for years, if not decades (although it's getting to be decades about now), and compromise the Royals, the government and the British people in subtle ways, not unlike the way the tragic deaths of two Kennedy brothers has compromised the U.S.
It would certainly never occur to me to enrich greeting card companies, stuffed toy manufacturers or the local supermarket flower stall by using their offerings to diminish and cheapen a tragic event. If I were truly upset by Princess Diana's death, then the proper course of action would be to make a donation to one of her causes, finding and defusing land-mines in Eastern Europe and so on. Or I might even to do some serious volunteering of my own, if her example meant anything. I admit that I did nothing, except feel sorry for her sons. But that was enough. I didn't know the lady; I only knew of her.
A Greeting Card Way of Life and Death
But that's not what Americans do these days. They wail and tear at their garments, so to speak, over the deaths of people they did not know and could not have loved in any way except as a fanatic. What, one may ask, is wrong with our society when Americans young and old engage in the particularly egregious expression of store-bought emotion that results in eyesores and no help to anyone? Are they convinced that wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and thus forcing their issues (whatever those might be) on others is a desirable action? Or perhaps they are begging for sympathy; if they can't get it for their own failed efforts at life's tasks, then they'll take it by referral when someone they know of dies. Maybe it's the greeting card industry's fault: It is no longer necessary to write sympathy notes to the bereaved. It is only necessary to spend $3.50 and buy some sentiments. It's just as easy, then, to create a pseudo-tribute, most often to someone not even close enough to rate a daily thought before their death, never mind after. For instance, for those of us not suffering mental illness, Princess Diana.
Back to Reality
I have no idea how many times I will think about Fernando Molleda in days, weeks, months to come. I know I have thought of him often this past ten days, also thinking about how his death might affect my friend's daughter, and offering her any solace from me she can use. My husband and I will go to the visiting hours this evening, not a pleasant task at the best of times, and even less so when it means four hours of driving in nasty DC traffic in 97 degree heat. I am not complaining. I am happy to do it.
But I will not send the Molledas a pre-printed greeting card. I will send them a handwritten note, and in it, I will enclose a donation for the scholarship fund. I'm not bucking for sainthood; I'm simply making a point about grief and remembrance. Grief is best dealt with in person, or in personal notes if presence is impossible. Using nothing but commercial greeting cards cheapens death and grief, makes it into nothing more than menu choices:
"Oh, I think I'll have the sadness, with a dollop of heartfelt concern on the side."
Or, "I'll have the didn't-know-your-Uncle Jake-but-he-musta-been-swell" with a side order of "Call me when you've finished weeping and we'll do lunch."
Even if the greeting card industry offers no sentiment that expresses exactly what one wants to say to express one's self, or needs to say to comfort a friend or relative, people buy the cards anyway. They make do with them, as they make do with bogus displays of funereal angst instead of living real lives and grieving appropriately for people they actually know, or who were beloved of people they actually knew.
Or perhaps the epidemic of laziness and low self-esteem that grips this country has helped to make ordinarily decent people chary of spending the time and effort to write what they just know (convinced by the greeting card industry that has usurped the role for profit) will be an inadequate or ungrammatical, perhaps, expression of their sincere feelings.
In building the instant memorial gardens, planted with faded ribbons and sad-looking stuffed animals, perhaps they are looking for some way to feel good about themselves. This is not it. Self-esteem comes from within, not from within the greeting card store. Indeed, the deceased are dishonored when their passing is marked with displays of insincere grief that attempt to arouse the same bogus sentiment in strangers. Worse still, those displays are left to molder and create eyesores that continue to dishonor the life that was meant to be remembered.
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