Fourtyrulz

I've noticed in recent posts (mainly the "Police Kill 13 Year Old Boy", and "Suicide" threads) that people have a nagging sympathy for the dead. To quote a fellow member on the death of the young boy: To which I smack myself in the face and with a dumbfounded look ask, "Why?"

Why are the dead worthy of our sympathy or our pity? Shouldn't sympathy rest with those that are still living? One of my close friends was killed in a car accident last October at age 17, and at his funeral I kept hearing people who barely knew him in high school practically chanting, "I feel so bad for him. I feel sorry for him..." Why? What about his family, his step-mom who I was close with especially, or his friends? The dead have no voice with which to mourn; they have no feeling of loss of their loved ones or of anger at god. While I do regret that he has been left behind and unable to grow up and truly experience life, I do not pity him in death.

Those that are dead are just that; let those of the living who need it have your sympathy.

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the·o·ry - a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation.
faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary

*Nikki*

I guess just maybe we feel sympathy for the dead because we have no real idea of what has become of them. Because they left their lives unfinished and this leaves us all feeling sad. This is always true when someone dies young. Of course their is pity for the family, friends, etc; but they still have their lives to live.

Brooke

I think I side with Fourty - I feel worse for the people left behind who'slives are shaen badly. The Family, and the friends. Our school was recently shaken up by a suicide and I don't feel bad at all for the guy. For his family and friends and for the people who found him my heart goes out to - but him....he's dead. Nothing I can do.

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Manic_Skafe

How can you have sympathy for that which does not exist?

Those that claim to feel sympathy for the boy probably don't feel sympathy for the boy in particular but more than likely, a feeling of sympathy for the entire situation and all who are involved - I had assumed things of this sort go without saying because they're universally understood.

I think you're looking a bit too deep into a figure of speech.

However, you have my deepest sympathies for the loss of your friend.

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Coppertop

But doesn't death mean exactly that their lives are finished? I'd hate to think that someone might tell me my life was "finished" when I retire at 65 even though I am still alive and kicking.

I think Neil gaiman said it best here:I'd say it's the quality of the life that is important, not the duration.

Charlatan

Which is why it is sad when a kid dies... they had a short duration and therefore less time to even develope a "quality of life".

Part of the "sympathy" we feel for those who have died really stems from the fact that we are ALL going to die. That all of us live with the existencial fear of death.

When we hear of someone's death, we immediately harken to our own impending death and it makes us a bit uneasy.

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filtherton

Aside from my own personal feelings of loss, i'm happy for anyone who has moved beyond this life.

chickentribs

When somebody passes away I think it makes perfect sense to mourne the things that will not be. You feel sorry that the experiences they were going to have are vanquished. The jokes they were going to tell, the love they were going to have, the things they were going to learn. Show a bit of respect for the life they lived by acknowledging the empty space where they should be...

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dksuddeth

we sympathize with/for the young person whos life is no more because they didn't get to experience all that life has to offer. That does not mean that we don't feel sympathy for those left behind.

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Frowning Budah

I never thought about having sympathy for the dead. I guess it could stem from the fact the those who have died have no more chances for experiences in this life, reincarnation not withstanding. Personally I think those that have died have found the peace the rest of us are seeking. I feel bad about those left behind because they will now have to exist without the one they loved.

TheFrogel

To take a specific point off of this topic:
Isn't mourning very selfish? That's not to say that it's wrong, or that I've never done it, or that those who mourn are idiots, but isn't it? The other person has gone on to whatever they go to: Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, the void, whatever. We don't know what's happened to them, so how can we feel sorry for them? We might feel sad for the life cut short, but that's also because we're worried that we, ourselves might leave things unfinished. We might feel bad for family and friends who missed them, but that's not mourning.

I hope no one takes this personally, but it stems from a conversation that me and my brother had a few weeks ago.

chickentribs

Actually, Frogel - I would say that mourning is exactly a community process that lends support to one another to get through losing someone you loved. In focusing on others who were close to the deceased it lightens your own sadness.

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Oft expectation fails...
and most oft there Where most it promises
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bad jane

i sometimes feel sympathy for the dead, particularly a young person. sure i feel for the family too, but it's not like sympathy is exclusive.

i've felt bad for suicides. some people feel it is a cowardly way out of life and couldn't imagine ever doing it, to them i say i hope you never experience such anguish in your life that you feel the only way to end it is by taking your own life.

i always feel really bad for young people, particularly infants. yes it is horrible for the family, but there is still a sadness for the child and all they missed out on. life is a great thing and they won't know it, that's sad and i feel sorry for them--even if i believed in a perfect heaven, i'd feel bad for what they missed here.

also, i think religious/spiritual beliefs play a role in it. if you believe you die and that's it, then i would think it is easier to just say they're dead and forget about it. but if you believe they go on, then why wouldn't it be appropriate to feel sympathy for them? if you think a loved one is burning in hell, isn't it appropriate to feel a little sorry for them? if you believe they will return in another form at a later date, why not feel sympathy for what they missed out on this time around? if a friend had broken her leg in school and couldn't go to a dance i'd have felt bad for her, even though there would be more dances she could attend later.

Thome

I don't feel sympathy for the dead, in the same way I don't feel regret or sympathy for what could have been. My feeling is always: So what? They're dead now, so what if they could have lead a great life?

Which isn't to say death can be shrugged off, it just means it sucks for YOU, not for the corpse.

lurkette

Gotta side with the "sympathy for the living" crowd. I might feel regret for what the dead person might have missed in his or her life, but not really sympathy. It's those of us who are left behind who have to deal with the feelings. I always think it's kind of pointless, though, to wonder about what the person might have missed. Sure, they might have missed getting married or graduating from college, but they also might have missed horrible relationships, debilitating illness, etc. Why do we always asssume that the dead would have had wonderful lives if they hadn't been killed "before their time?" That was one thing I had to deal with when my brother died. I thought about the good stuff he would miss, but I also thought how lucky he was not to have to deal with some of the shit that he might have had to deal with if he'd woken up from the coma brain damaged and scarred. I dealt with whatever regrets I had about his life as he experienced, but I've stopped wishing he hadn't died, or even wishing that the accident hadn't happened at all.

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nofnway

always speak good of the dead....is he dead? Good.

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flstf

I have mourned the death of several loved ones in my life and you are right, I was probably upset more by my loss than their demise. Even though I knew it was selfish on my part I still couldn't help feeling intense grief. I imagine we are just wired that way.

Rainyshoes

I feel sympathy for the dead in a before-the-fact capacity. For the suicide victim, I feel pity for the mental anguish they endured before deciding the last of all last resorts was the best option left for them (although, admittedly, the cynic in me believes that the last thought through a suicide victim's head is "Oh shit, wait a sec..."). For the person who died of crime, illness or disease, I feel sympathy for the fear and suffering endured as they felt their own life slipping away.

But, then again, I guess that's not really sympathy for the dead. It's sympathy for the almost-dead.

For the sudden death victim, I don't experience sadness at all...even before-the-fact. "She was just driving to the school to pick up the kids, without any idea she'd never make it there nor ever see her kids again until that cement truck crossed the yellow line." Well, um...GOOD for her that she didn't have any idea! I'd be a mental meltdown if I knew when I was going to die and have to know my last day on earth to be with my family. Can you imagine how torturously fast each day leading up to the last one would pass by?

The REAL sadness in that example is in the thought of the kids waiting and waiting and waiting at school, wondering where mom is at...just about to get the worst news of their lives, and having to grow up motherless.

So, yeah...I'd agree. Once death has occurred (rendering the dead with the official title of "the dead"), the sympathy is no longer for the deceased...it's for what the living have lost.

kid astronaut

i think it's a little weird to assume that, as soon as life leaves a body, our emotions and sympathies that are tied up with the person that died are going to leave as well

i feel sorry for a dead person because i'm sure, if you'd asked them, they'd have probably said no they don't want to die.

feeling sorry for the dead isn't something that most people do because they think that the corpse is sad. they do it because the person that was alive no longer gets a chance to experience life.

that's how it seems to me, anyway

Rainyshoes

Understood, kid astronaut...and I don't entirely disagree with that. But how does that hold up against the suicide victim who took specific measures to NOT go on living? Or the cancer victim in so much pain and anguish that they're pleading to be allowed to die and the folks who sought out Dr. Kervorkian because medical conditions rendered life unbearable for them?

It's not unlike (nor too distant from) planning the funeral. Certain songs may be chosen...or certain things said...or certain burial outfits selected...or certain special actions done (perhaps, say, sprinkling ashes in a particular location the deceased loved)...in an attempt by the living to create what they think the deceased would have wanted. But, in the end, whose benefit is the funeral really for? I think it's for the ones who are alive to experience it. The dead know no different (*see my end note on this statement).

The finer points of debate actually lead to the widely-varied ways people grieve, or what prompts them to grieve and what to grieve for...so I think there's really no one "right" answer. For a little child that dies in a car accident, there are going to be people that grieve for all the years we think he had left in front of him...that we think were going to be happy and trouble-free years...and that we think he would have enjoyed. Others (which is where I think I lean more toward) take a look at the child's parents sitting in the memorial service, their shoulders shaking with their sobs and the pain of losing their son etched on their face, and feel like my heart is being ripped out at the thought of these people living with the pain of this for the rest of their lives.

So I guess all my yammering was the long way of saying "Yep...you've got a point too, but I think there's more than one answer"

(*By the way, I'm deliberately keeping afterlife musings out of this because that's a whole different ball of wax that convolutes the original premise of the thread...so, for the sake of this argument, I'm speaking of dead as an absolute biological ending).

drakers

Why? Because, he was a human being, we all are. It is nature to feel for the dead first, because can you imagine what was going through their mind before they died. "Why did I do this?", "What could I have been if I hadn't gotten in this mess?"; we mourn because it is hard to comprehend death. I don't know if you believe in an afterlife Fourtyrulz, but if you did you'd understand that they do have a soul and do feel emotional pain of not being there. People are there to let them know how they felt for them while they were alive.

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kid astronaut

yeah rainyshoes, i definitely agree with you about the funeral being for the sake of the grievers. there is a good point in this thread about sympathy a person's survivors.

as for people who commit suicide-- i just feel sorry that they were in a bad enough situation to actually want to do that.

also just as a side-note, in your example about the child who died, i guess the parents are grieving because of the years that they think he could have had left, etc. i definitely feel for them, but i would grieve for the child in the same way the parents would, too, i suppose.

analog

I dunno, I'm pretty much unaffected when children die. They (overall) knew a very happy existence, no responsibilities, no real pain or love, no true disappointments (not getting Hungry Hungry Hippos for Christmas hardly counts as true disappointment)... the list goes on and on.

They (again, overall) only know the happiness of their childhood, the comfort of a parent or parents. They have no real concept of love yet. The only concept of love they have is the natural feeling of closeness a child feels to his or her guardians. They have no true friends, no relationships- no girlfriends or boyfriends, no husbands or wives...

They will never know the pain of losing their parents, losing their siblings, friends, or significant others. They are fortunate, in that respect.

Those who know none of the pleasantries i've listed above could possibly be all more the lucky- they'll no longer have to experience what should otherwise be the most care-free point in the existence. Plus, they still don't have the pain of losing those they care for, one by one, as they get older.

And don't ask about how i'll feel as a parent, i'm never having children.

ironmaiden7o7

It's a reaction that I always get when I hear of someone's death, whether I knew them or not, there's always this shock. I don't feel sympathy for them per se, but for the family,especially if there are kids involved. If a very old person dies, it doesn't bother me much because I know that they won't suffer anymore.

wolf

I think many people confuse mourning with sympathy for the dead. Mourning is our own sorrow for the loss of the person we loved. It is difficult to feel sympathy for that which we do not know.

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raveneye

When somebody close to us dies, we often do not comprehend or even believe that they are gone.

For weeks after my brother died, I still felt his presence, his personality, his mind, his will, and attributed all kinds of emotions to him. I heard his voice, saw his influence in all sorts of little events from day to day. I "knew" he was pissed as hell that he had gotten himself and his wife killed, leaving four teenaged kids behind in a parentless house; I "knew" that he expected me to do my part to make sure that those kids found their way into a decent college and didn't mess up their lives; I "knew" that he wanted me to not get hung up on the fact that he was gone; and in these imaginings yes, indeed, I "sympathized" with him that this horrific thing had happened to him. I must have apologized to him a thousand times that I had forgotten to call him and wish him a happy birthday.

For several days after his death there were two ravens that often circled the sky above my house. I convinced myself that they were the the two spirits of my brother and his wife, and that they were floating around up there for the sole reason to reassure me that they were OK and that I should get on with my life.

I was living on an Indian reservation at the time, and several neighbors would look up at them and tell me, why of course those are their spirits. What else would they be? And when they go off on their way I should let them do so, otherwise they are not going to be at peace.

I think it's inevitable that survivors feel this way, it's really part of the grieving process. You just have to go through it somehow.

Fourtyrulz

I don't really think there is a point to me believing in an afterlife, afterall I am still alive and kicking. I think the burden of the afterlife lies squarely on the dead themselves, and in my friends case none of us were really sure what he believed in that regard. The way I see it he is having a much better time taking guitar lessons from Stevie Ray Vaughn than he ever had jamming with my unworthy ass. But what good would my views of life after death be to him anyway?

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the·o·ry - a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation.
faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary

raeanna74

I actually have rarely heard that phrase (I feel so sorry for him/her.) at any funerals that I've gone to. Most of the people I grew up around are quite religious. In our religion we have a clear picture of what we imagine the afterlife to be. I'm sure it will be quite different than what we picture in our minds but the image that we usually hold in our mind is not a saddening image. Those that have gone on are in our vision happier. The sorrow that we feel is for those left behind. It is sad when you find someone who had ended their life before fate was free to decide the end for them. I think that the possibilities that were thrown away grieve us more than the actual loss of the person themselves at times. Maybe it's a warped way of thinking. Thta's how most funerals I've been to have seemed.

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MacGuyver

When it comes to death, I tend to lean twoards old Roman culture. Instead of sorrow and mourning, we should bid those who lead good lives into the afterlife with honor and be proud that we were associated with them.

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kitsune

i agree with you there, the dead most likely feel nothing. and even if there is a life after death, i'm sure the dead are having a blast in thier respective afterlives. it's the living that need sympathy

Stick

The sorrow we feel at someones death may have more to do with being reminded of
our own mortality and our fear of the unknown, than anything else.

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