Please, no lies as you eulogize

THE EDITOR: If some people sat down to think what a eulogy really means, they wouldn’t be writing so many lies in the newspapers these day. All those nice things people saying about the man who just dead, they should be saying the truth instead. If he was a racist, then just say so. He never hid what he did, so why look me in the eye and lie? He was a case of prejudice personified.

So we want to praise him into eternity with a good eulogy? A eulogy is described as a speech or writing in praise of a person, especially one recently dead. But they lie...eulogies lie. Thou shalt not lie, can be apt at funerals too.

"Say something nice about the man nah, he done dead already," seems to be the mantra for when people leave the earthly scene. It doesn’t matter how many wrongs they did in their lifetime; one good eulogy will make it all right. What a fallacy!

We have attended many funerals through the years and saw plenty tears flow for the dearly departed. But we have also seen quite a few sullen faces in the crowd, which masked the anger over the sweet words being said about the dead. When a loved one gets up to give some praise to the memories and legacy of the departed, that’s time for niceties not unpleasantries. That is what people call a eulogy.

So we revel in the glory of the man or woman who just left the scene even if their life was not so clean. But God be the judge. While we rant and rave the man going in his grave after saying a prayer to God for salvation in the Christian way, or whatever his belief might be and it’s we left to ketch.

So after all the praise for the person deceased who sometimes didn’t even deserve it, we walk away with a sense of pride. We have done our deed and let all the haters fret.The man must have had at least one good bone in his body, as the old people used to say. So who am I to judge? The eulogizers can’t help but lie about the man today. Go ahead then, just say what you going to say. A hero to many, but he fought for only a few.

So when we say what we say, till the day that the departed is laid to rest, let’s remember that God is the one who gives the final test and the scales of justice will be balanced over yonder, where we will hear the real eulogy read, the one that people cannot see; the one that determines our destiny.

TERRENCE HONORE

San Fernando