What the Dead Said

I had a terrible week last week, so I was going to write a piece about pet peeves.  Then things went from bad to worse and I decided that I would vent about something even bigger than a pet peeve.   

I am at the age now where many people I loved, and who loved me, are gone.  By gone I mean dead.  For some strange reason I have the capability to sit with folks who are dying.  I can sit for long periods and listen to them as they talk saying what is on their minds.   

 

They may decide to tell stories about their lives or talk about things that they liked or didn’t.  The filters are removed.  Deep secrets are revealed, because what do they have to lose by speaking the truth as to what their feelings or thoughts are?   

Not many of my family or friends are able sit those hours.  They ask me how I can do it and I reply that I am glad to do it.  What they don’t know, although I have tried explaining this to them, is that I have learned so much about many aspects of life and the interior thinking processes of people on their way out.  It has provided a selfish motive for me as well as an altruistic one.   

After the person dies things change so much.  People who had their turns “sitting” with the dying person found every excuse, while they were in that setting, to go anywhere except sitting in the chair next to the person with whom they were supposed to be sitting beside.  They may spend the hours at the place, but not with the person.  They, therefore, do not get to hear the stories.   

Then, as time passes, they tell what the dead said.  Now, naturally, as you can imagine since they did not hear what the dead said they make it up to suit whatever they are wanting to do telling all those around them that this was what so-and-so said or wanted.  For most listeners this is not a problem, because they were not there and so they do not know that the person who was supposed to be there wasn’t—in reality either.   

When they say to me, however, what the dead said and I actually heard from the persons own lips, usually at least several times, what they actually said I really get angry.  It also hurts me that they would attribute to the person who no longer has a voice what they want not what I know the person wanted.   

Maybe they believe that they are telling the truth or maybe they know that they are lying.  I don’t know, but I wish that whenever someone says what the dead said and it is wrong that the dead person could just pop right up beside them and say, “No, I did not say that.  I said this ____.”  Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing?   

©Patty F. Cooper, Elizabethton, Tennessee August 25^th, 2014   

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