Here’s something I’ve always struggled with: When someone passes, and they’re one of the most exquisitely unique human beings you’ve ever come across, how do you articulate it?
You can say it all, but how do make sure everyone knows they were the best? Them, and no one else. How do you articulate they were just, simply, better.
The intriguing thing about death is that everyone is the best. And if everyone’s the best, then perhaps no one is. As if the minute your heart falters and your brain begins to sleep, every bad decision and every flaw and every mistake goes with you. Your slate is clean. The dead sit together on an even playing field.
And because of this, the one’s who weren’t so good aren’t remembered so, and the one’s who were particularly good don’t stand out as much.
So what happens when we buck that? What happens when we call out humans in death as we do in life?
This, it would seem.
Leslie Ray Charping passed away in Galveston, Texas, last month at the age of 74. His very honest obituary, written from his family, has amassed such traction that the website it sits on has crashed.
Charping was a father, a husband, a grandfather and an asshole. And not particularly in that order.
Top Comments
I really like this! The fact is that funerals are for the living, it is to grieve together and to have a sense of closure. If there's nothing to grieve then why bother? Some may find it more distasteful but I find it distasteful when once someone dies that all seems to be forgiven and suddenly they're the greatest human ever.
My mother was quite hurt that most of our family refused to go to the funeral of her father but that man deserved no respect and was quite frankly an awful excuse of a human being. He was controlling and abusive throughout his entire life and there was no way I was going to pretend I felt otherwise. In fact most of us signed with relief when he finally passed as it was 1 less monster in this world and he could no longer hurt anyone else. I also would have found it very disrespectful to his victims to do so. To each their own I guess!
I remember several years ago, there was a similar obituary that went viral, for a woman who made her family's life pretty miserable over the course of her life. I remember reading more than one comment that it was distasteful to speak ill of the dead and to air your family's dirty laundry in public.
Personally, I thought the same thing about that obit as I do about this one. If it was cathartic for this family to tell the truth, then I can't fault them for that. I hope they can find some peace now.