Controversial Obituary for This Woman’s Mother Caused Outrage – But I Think We Need More

Many of us have been told “don’t talk bad about the dead”. So what happens when someone who caused the trauma dies?

The idea that the deceased should be exempt from criticism simply because he or she has passed away is tiresome and needs urgent review. For victims of abuse, the death of their abuser may be the first opportunity to safely share their story. Fortunately, our cultural mythologies about the eternal love of families—and especially mothers—are finally beginning to be challenged, as in Jennette McCurdy’s disturbing account of her mother’s lifelong abuse in her bestselling memoir: “I’m Glad My Mother Is Dead. ” But often these honest memories are rejected or disbelieved.

Late last year a viral obituary Gayle Harvey Heckman described life-long details of the extreme abuse she claimed she suffered at the hands of her mother. A few days later the publication pulled the obituary, quoting:embarrassing mistake” They made sure they didn’t read my post more carefully before publishing it. The publication also described the obituary as “a spiteful hate piece against a beloved member of our community.”

My heart broke for Heckman when I read the newspaper’s response. Viewers’ discomfort at the prospect of someone making heinous choices while alive seemed to be far more important than validating a survivor’s truth.

The news media, and most people in general, seem to have very specific expectations about whether one should publicly suffer: When someone dies, we are supposed to attend their funeral; we need to cry; we need to miss the deceased and mourn openly; We need to write a lavish obituary fit for a king (or queen).

The unspoken rule is that we never, ever dare to suggest that the dead may have committed reprehensible acts while alive. As with Heckman, any statement that the legacy left behind was one of intense trauma for the survivors was summarily rejected.

I’m no stranger to trying and failing to publish an honest obituary.

When my beloved grandfather, whom I called “Pop,” died a few years ago, I tried to publish an honest paragraph about his life. I saw firsthand how he overcame a brutal marriage and spent his final years happily living in Florida, as far away from his ex-wife as his legs would carry him.

Sometime in the ’80s, my father picked up Pop from the side of the country road where he was walking barefoot, crying, and trying to find shelter, after his then-wife had kicked him out of the house without giving him a penny. I was a kid when Pop slept on our couch in Brooklyn with nowhere else to go while planning his next move. When I became an adult, I would spend hours on the phone with my grandmother as she expressed her regrets, including her marriage.

I’m married, so I’m acutely aware that there are two sides to every relationship story. But my grandfather’s experiences, who were directly subjected to harassment by the same woman, resonated deeply with my own.

Pop’s ex-wife was my biological grandmother, and there is not a generation in our family that has not been affected by her emotional, physical and financial abuse. In 1980, when I was a baby, he kicked out my teenage parents and me from his home. On a whim, he decided that my underemployed father and postpartum mother could do this on their own, without even a single source of their names. Family lore says the motivation for this decision had to do with an argument over an untidy bathroom.

Much later, years after the unthinkable situation she had put us in, my grandmother publicly and unashamedly took responsibility for what my parents were able to overcome in their early days as a young family. His lack of self-awareness will never be breathtaking to me.

When I was a young child – after my parents reconnected with my grandmother (reconnecting with abusers often dysfunctional family cycle) – my father felt it was necessary to supervise my grandmother’s visits with my younger sister and me, noting how physically and emotionally hostile she became to us when she thought no one was watching or listening.

Years later, I sought trauma-informed therapy to confront my own upbringing, and only then did I begin to understand how far-reaching and insidious my grandmother’s influence was.

This woman’s most morally corrupt (and sometimes criminal) acts were often carried out in private; reserved only for those who lived their lives under his poisonous thumb. So I can easily understand why casual friends, acquaintances, distant family, or anyone on the fringes of life would find it difficult—if not impossible—to believe such grim details.

This is precisely why society’s stance towards obituaries requires rethinking. Those who were previously unaware of a person’s traumatic experiences at the hands of a family member can gain important insight into what truly happened, and survivors of abuse can lift the veil of silence they live under and move forward with hope. improvement.

They say the best revenge is a life well lived. When I thought about my grandfather’s life, I thought that leaving his abusive marriage and finding happiness as an Elvis devotee in the Sunshine State was perhaps Pop’s greatest achievement; I noticed this detail when I started writing his obituary. He was also a veteran who found his post-service calling in the restoration of cars.

In writing about her life, I wanted to capture her triumphs and challenges, but I was struck down again and again. The newspapers didn’t want to hear about the abuses he had suffered and everything he had overcome on his way to peace. My only option was to write something delicious and half-true; It’s an easy-to-swallow fairy tale that readers can digest with ease and confidence.

Even though I was uncomfortable being silenced, the life Pop lived gave me a lot to work on. He was a truly beloved member of his community who loved his family unconditionally.

My grandmother died last fall. As far as I know, he abused me until his last breath. I don’t believe there is a way to honor the life he chose to live, and that’s why no one in the family wrote an obituary for him. Perhaps this article is the closest I can come to telling what I know to be the truth about him and the pain he causes.

For some, writing honest obituaries can be healing. Invalidating and dismissing survivors’ experiences for the sake of our own emotional comfort can be re-traumatizing. And telling a person that their experiences no longer matter because they lost their abuser is a terrible thing. it’s not like that The lasting effects of abuse and trauma work. A newspaper editor is in no moral position to decide whether an obituary is a “vindictive hate article.”

While it is true that the deceased cannot defend themselves against allegations about how they lived their life, they can no longer be held responsible for causing harm. Death grants them complete acquittal. Therefore, an honest obituary may be the survivor’s only path to closure. As American novelist Anne Lamott famously said: “You own everything that happens to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they would have to be nicer.” These are wise words for the rest of us.

I don’t know the complexities and intimacies of Heckman’s life—or his mother’s—beyond what he has published, but I believe him. And I believe that telling our stories, no matter how bleak or painful, can be crucial to moving forward, processing trauma, and ultimately healing. Writing honest obituaries, whether for a family member or a world leader, is not about revenge or tarnishing someone’s good name, and it certainly isn’t fun. It’s about telling the truth, holding people accountable for their actions, and in doing so, hoping to find a way to become whole again.

Need help? In the US, call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). National Domestic Violence Hotline.Christina Wyman is a writer and teacher living in Michigan. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, ELLE Magazine, Marie Claire, The Guardian and other publications. She hopes her articles about intergenerational trauma will help de-stigmatize the stories of survivors who emerge from abusive and toxic family dynamics.

This article was first published on: HuffPost.