"That is a type of murder"

http://freethoughtblogs.com/bluecollaratheist/2012/01/04/how-to-kill-the-dead/

There’s the physical death of the person, and it’s something everybody has to do. No matter how much we love someone, their death will happen and there’s no way to prevent it.
But there’s the possibility of this second death, the death of their memory and legacy as it exists in our heads. The death of their story, the true story of who and what they were, as it might be told to others to help them know the person as you did.
THIS death, in these cases is no accident.
People die because they die. But when you destroy the memory of them, that’s a type of murder.


The above is an excerpt from the blogger.

This is what happened to us. I should say part of what happened to us. This is so hard to explain. I have been trying to blog about my anger. Trying to paint the picture of my anger. Trying to get through the anger phase of grief for my Dad. I have been trying to really understand why I am so angry. I'm going to try to break down these three paragraphs. Here is how I relate to them.

Paragraph one - the physical death.  Basic fact. I have stated before, unless you are a werewolf or vampire, you will not live forever. You, me, all of us are going to die one day. Basic fact.

In our case, our Dad did not have to die when he did. Yes, stage four cancer. He was going to die. He was going to lose the war. But he did not have to lose this particular battle. He could have lived to see Jes graduate. It was impossible to count how many grandparents there were at her graduation ceremony. I was told by my brother and sister-in-law that when their only child graduated college, they were only allowed two tickets for the ceremony. They gave those two tickets to their only child's grandparents.  Daddy could have lived long enough to be at Jes' graduation. It was only two months and 4 days away. March 14, 2012 Daddy died. May 18, 2012 Jes graduated college. This is what I cannot comprehend. Daddy's wife was absolutely sure Daddy was dying any day. She convinced him he was dying, then and there. Nothing to do about it. Doctors said Larry is dying, according to his wife. Larry can go home on Wednesday, is what the doctors actually said. In this case, that was no accident. That is a type of murder. She convinced our Dad that it was time to die. Daddy trusted her, and believed her. And died.

Paragraph two - the death of their memory and legacy. I'm not sure if I can do this right now. I think I can do snippets. I can get past paragraph one - the physical death. That I can accept. I can accept the physical death. I can't  get to the death of Daddy's memory. I'm just going to throw out sentences. I can't look at the whole picture yet.

We were only told Daddy was cremated when our sister, Teresa, asked our aunt Linda about it. About a week after the memorial service. Which was two weeks after his death. No one thought to tell us about his cremation until we asked.

I vaguely remember hearing something about the organ donation. But it is only vague. No one bothered to tell us the facts. I vaguely remember Teresa had to ask Linda about it as well.  Vague memories of our father's organ donation.

The first time we asked for some ashes, we were told no. We couldn't have any. The second time we asked, no we can't have any. The third time we asked for ashes, the answer was, again from Linda, "We thought it was understood that you would get some." The fourth time we asked, was actually not done in the form of a question. It was done in the form of public humiliating his wife on Facebook. For all of her friends to see. I have touched on this in a previous post. A picture of my Dad's headstone showed up on my newsfeed. I made the comment "It is so nice of you to respect the wishes of Daddy's dead parents, while continuing to ignore the request of his live children." Two hours later, we all got an e-mail from Stacy saying she was mailing us some ashes the next day. We had to ASK for ashes. Not ask once, ask FOUR times. Denied his memory in the form of ashes.

Only one of Daddy's children could even bear to go to one of the two memorial services. We were invited to attend. If we couldn't attend, we could write a paper to be read. We were not invited to help select music. We were not invited to speak. We were not invited to help plan the services. We were not allowed any input into our own father's memorial service. We were invited to attend. We were not allowed to show the world, the attendees....  We were not allowed to show the Daddy side of Larry Bonner, to the world, to his friends. The world was denied the memories and legacy of Daddy as told by his children. His children. Not one single person has reached out to us. I take that back. Daddy's sister Linda tried. But, she was only trying to show us Stacy's side. She was not willing to look anything from our point of view.

I can't even talk about us being denied any material items that were Daddy's. For us, these items would represent his life. His legacy. His memory that we could touch and hold and look at.

Not only did Daddy's wife hurry his death along, she continues to murder his legacy and memory of being a Dad.