Remembrance

Yesterday there was a basketball game at school. This particular one is held every year in memory of an alumnus who was killed in the army twenty years ago.

Before the game, there were endless speeches of how he was so nice, so brave, how he loved music and sports, how young he was when he died. I know that many people in the gym were not listening. And it made me think: what is remembrance? From the description, you could have thought that this boy was an angel, which, with no disrespect to him, probably wasn't true. People tend to glorify the dead, and they aren't around to set the record straight. At funerals and memorial services, people only mention how lovely they were. No one talks about the bad or annoying things they did. It's "disrespectful." But is it? I mean, would you like someone to talk about you like you were some sort if god, when in fact you weren't? Maybe you say yes, but do you want to be remembered as the "lovely angel who did no wrongs?" I don't.

The thing is, this is so ingrained into our culture that no one finds it strange that we may not remember people in their entirety. Of course, you shouldn't be cursing and insulting them, but who wants to be made into a god? Who wants to be made the subject of endless speeches of good? With our human nature, we don't like hearing good things. We only find the unusual, strange, and bad interesting.

This is why dead heroes are the subject of much debate. The dead can't ruin their perfect image. The dead can be made into gods. But should they? Because in the end, no one is ever any more than human.