Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 91

I saw advertised on the internet a “eulogy pack” for the sudden death of a stepfather.

The company was running a half-price special: six speeches and six poems for only $24.99 (regularly $49.98). Each eulogy articulates the sadness and disbelief of a stepson or stepdaughter at the death of a beloved stepfather. It speaks of what your stepfather meant to you in your life, his many talents and skills, and how much he will be missed, especially because he had a sudden, unexpected death. The eulogy ends with a poem that the stepchild is instructed to read quietly and sincerely. A different pack, also half-price, is offered if the stepfather’s death followed a long illness. And there are other eulogy six-packs for sale, tailored to the death of a stepmother, grandfather, or almost any other relationship.

Emotionally-constipated people through the ages have hired others to do their mourning or cheering for them. Dickens’s Oliver Twist had a job as a professional mourner. The undertaker hired him to attend funerals and look sad, weep, and model grief, and so give permission to others attending the funeral to do the same. Today, for $49.98, he might be able to hire out as a reader of eulogies composed by professionals.

Late-night talk shows and political rallies and other entertainment venues have been known to place a “plant” in the audience to laugh at jokes or applaud, hoping the plant’s emoting will be contagious, in much the same way cheerleaders are planted at ballgames.

In the 1936 presidential campaign, Roosevelt defended any mistakes he might be making in his efforts to be a compassionate leader by quoting “the immortal Dante” who said that “divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-blooded on different scales.70

Fish swim, birds fly, flowers bloom, and humans emote. When all is said and done, may we be found among the warm-blooded ones who rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.