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Everybody Loved Him
Last night while listening to the news on the radio, I heard a story about yet another murder, which included an interview with a friend of the victim. This person described the victim as someone who had a great sense of humor who made people laugh and that "everybody loved him".
As I listened, I thought of how nearly these exact words are used almost every time there's a story about someone who was murdered or simply died suddenly at a young age. The victim is, almost without exception, a blessing and a joy to everyone they ever met.
A listener taking such reports at face value would be led to believe that humorless, misanthropic people are never murdered, nor do they ever die before their time. It's the "Only the Good Die Young" syndrome.
There's also a second, underlying assumption going on. Some people seem to assume that if the person had been anything less than a saint that "everybody loved", then that person somehow deserved to be murdered, so they rush in to assure everyone that the victim was a spotless paragon of virtue.
This brings to mind one prominent murder that happened during my years on the police force. The victim was a well-to-do older widow, who had been murdered by a man she'd been keeping company with. The media had portrayed her in the typical fashion as a wonderful, generous woman whom everyone in the community adored.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. In reality, she was a slumlord whom we'd dealt with several times in disputes with her hapless tenants. She was a mean, unpleasant harridan of a woman about whom few people had anything good to say.
Nevertheless, she didn't deserve to die in the violent way she did. Her character and esteem in the community or lack thereof had nothing to do with her right to remain alive until she died of natural causes. Her death was a tragedy, regardless of her personality or popularity.
Thoughts?
It's also the thing where no one wants to speak ill of the dead, which
quickly becomes no one wanting to even speak honestly. I always liked the
idea in Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead of a eulogist
working to discover the truth of the person, the good, the bad, everything.
Instead, people seem so scared of the truth.
I just figure it's best to say nothing. I like to think that there is a
wee bit of good buried somewhere in everyone, even though I'll never
believe it.
Sounds like you're describing someone I knew as well.
Right after I student taught, I was a substitute teacher. One day, I was
called to a school in a community where, the night before, a man had
murdered his son and wife. The boy should have been in the homeroom class
I was subbing in. The kids were in shock and in need, so they opened up to
me quickly. The hardest part for them was that they hadn't liked the boy.
He was a bully, and no one could count themselves his friend. Now that he
was dead by his father's hand, they felt guilty. I told them that I
imagined that his father was probably a big reason the kid was mean, but
that this did not obligate them to like the boy or tolerate his abuse. We
could mourn that the boy would never have a chance to redeem himself, but
people who are mean don't have friends. That's just life.
A local man was murdered here a few weeks before Christmas. He worked with
Honey's brother, and I work with his sister in law. The family felt
obligated to answer the community's questions on how this could happen with
a letter to the local paper that pointed out that the victim was a kind and
generous man who occasionally strayed down the wrong path in life. He
offered help to someone that ended up murdering him. I don't know why they
felt the need to show the victim was flawed as we all make mistakes at some
time in our life. As you point out, no one deserves to die in a violent
way.
