I started Duolingo lessons a little over a week ago — French, for fun, and Latin, for... a few reasons. One being that, when I do return to singing (and I will), having a familiarity with the language will help me connect with what I sing more immediately and intimately. The other being that, I love digging into the history and fullness of the words we use today, especially as someone who writes for a living.
The word “sacred,” for example. I recently learned that it comes from the Latin “sacer,” which means “holy” or “hallowed.” Godly.
I found myself thinking about the idea earlier this morning, when the news of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death made its way into my social media feeds. The South Carolina politician died at the age of 71, following what his representatives termed a “brief and sudden illness.” In the wake of his passing, the jokes were flying — and of course, the scolding for making light of his death quickly followed. “You can tell a lot about a person by how they react when someone dies,” declared TV personality and failed Republican mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, in one (condescending) example.
Some will think this classless, I’m sure, but: I am so utterly disinterested in demands that the people who were hurt and marginalized by the likes of Graham... be “bigger people” when the likes of Graham die. That we refrain from speaking ill of the dead. That we treat death as sacred.
Because death exists in total contrast with the very concept of sanctity — dying is so utterly, deeply human of us. It is one of the only things that truly binds every last person together, through the shared experiencing of it. We are all going to die one day, and there’s nothing we can do about that. It’s the human condition.
What is unique, however... what we can control... what could be sacred about us... is how we live. Some of us more than others, to be sure, depending on the luck of our birth — the “where” and “how” and “who” of it all. But we each have a significant measure of say in the legacies we leave behind. We are very much the architects of our own remembrance.
And with his time on this Earth. Graham actively worked to keep LGBTQ Americans from achieving equality, voting in favor of defining marriage in heterosexual terms, and against workplace protections for the community. He championed a national abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, despite studies highlighting the harm such bans lead to. Though he once called out President Donald Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” he since became an ally and defender of his, once the man assumed the presidency (despite Trump proving his earlier words right time and time again). There’s more, beyond these examples.
I am not without compassion for those weathering grief at a loss, even his loss. (Though, I would remind them that we can and should be judged by the company we choose to keep, as well as by our actions.) But if one doesn’t wish to have their death mocked en masse... if one wishes for others to feel sadness at their gone-ness, rather than relief... if one wants their passing, and their life, to be held as sacred things — one should live life accordingly.
Or, you can live as Graham did — harming through action, through hypocrisy, through complicity, with the power given to him by the people. But when you’re gone, you cannot be surprised when others react not with tears, or reverence… but by noting how you “deathmogged” a fellow harmful, geriatric power monger.
Your call.
Truly.