In Memoriam

(A reflection by Sal Godoij.)

Dear friend,

Have you noticed how people become more visible when they are dead than when they were alive? At a funeral or memorial service, for example. People gather and start sharing pieces of the deceased’s life, completing a puzzle you never imagined existed.

On this note, I once went to a memorial service for an old gentleman I had known for at least fifteen years. Family and friends gathered in the chapel. Among the many pictures and videos of his life, one photo from his younger days showed him in a military uniform. So, it was just there that I learned that my old professor and friend had been in the military, campaigned in Africa, where he was held as a prisoner and tortured. I never imagined this person as a military man in his younger days, least of all in Africa, and he never spoke a word about this important part of his life.

If you happen to be in one of these events, you will notice how unknown chapters of the departed life come out in speeches, videos, and conversations; things that somehow surprise or touch you even though you thought you knew enough about the deceased life and felt you were close or closer than most people present.

The paradox is: death can reveal chapters of a person’s life that remained unknown to us while they were alive. Think of it.

When we have a relationship with someone, be it a spouse, a long-time friend, a coworker, even our parents, we say we know them. But what do we mean by knowing? Loving someone deeply doesn’t mean knowing every chapter of their past or every relationship they cultivated. Perhaps the question is not whether our emotions take over knowledge, but whether we mistake closeness for a complete understanding of another person’s life.

Why is that?

I think that loss gives our search for meaning a particular urgency. When someone we loved has departed, we look backward and gather the pieces of their life that we carry in memory. We do this to celebrate their legacy and to make sense of the loss. In sharing those pieces, we begin to see a life beyond the part we knew ourselves. And this is a very human thing.

If we come to realize that when we are across the coffin we know now more about this person than when he or she was alive, I may suggest that we get closer to this person when he or she is alive; thus, the goal should be to bridge that gap while we are still here, to ask richer questions, to share our own authentic stories sooner, and to tell the living how much they mean to us before those words become a speech given to a quiet room.

So, my dear friend, I invite you to reflect on your life.

What kind of story or hidden passion do you think would surprise the people in your life if it were told today?

Is there something that you know about yourself, but you think nobody else knows, that could be disclosed during your celebration of life?