Disrespectful idealisation

I don’t know why but over the past few weeks I’ve become conscious of the fact that the world is now only populated with wonderful people, apart from a few monsters. Every death, every retirement, every occasion where people pay tribute that I’ve come across has demonstrated this to me. No one was or is less than perfect.

Why are we finding it so difficult to respect and honour people for what they actually are or have been? To do justice to them, not some idealised, airbrushed image?

Remembering back to a time when I frequented funerals (in a pastoral capacity, I hasten to add), there was a loving realism about the way in which people spoke of the deceased. They recollected times when that person had proved to be all too human, even laughing at their foibles. They were mourning a real person whom they had known and loved, not a perfected construction of their imagination. The trend to idealisation is neither healthy for those who have to work through their grief nor respectful of the person.

The other day I almost choked on my cup of tea as I read what had been said about someone I knew reasonably well. Some things were truthfully said, and it was right to say them. Some other things were manifestly exaggerated if not actually untrue. I cannot imagine how they were said even with tongue firmly in cheek and fingers crossed. How was that respectful of the person to whom tribute was being paid when most of those gathered would have known the reality? Would it not have been better to stick with the things that properly and deservedly could be said?

So it was with a sense of relief that I watched and read the tributes to Senator Edward Kennedy. A realism both about his personal flaws and his political achievements. That was respect.