Being the spokesperson for someone else's life
Everyone in my life (including myself) has experienced one "big death" in their life, the kind that changes everything. Something I've noticed is that, whenever the dead person's name comes up, people start asking these hypothetical questions. "Do you think if ______ was still here that they would have liked that movie? Do you think they would've liked that person? What do you think _____ would think of today's politics? Do you think they would be MAGA?"
I once accidentally did this to my husband. "Do you think if ______ was still alive that she would like me?" He got really quiet and eventually said, "I don't know." And honestly I feel the same way when people ask me hypothetical questions about dead people. They're not here anymore, so how could I say? I really don't know; nobody knows. And, on a larger scale, am I really the right person to be the spokesperson for somebody else? Would they even want me to speak for them?
My mom was the worst about this after my brother past. She would say things like, "Oh, he would've loved so-and-so! I bet he's up in heaven so happy about blah blah blah!" There was always a part of me that thought, "Um, actually you don't know that." But when someone dies, who else can speak for them besides loved ones? And by speaking about them, it keeps them alive in a sense. But speaking about them within a future context feels a bit out of line, like we're trying to take their personality and flatten it into a character.
My mom (once again, the worst culprit) used to send me birthday cards written in my brother's voice. My mom's a boomer and knows nothing about current slang, so on the inside of the card she would write something like: "Yo sis, what's up?? Happy Birthday, yo!!" And I'd be like, what the fuck? That went on for a few years before I finally begged her to stop doing that. Of course she didn't take the criticism well. "I was just being a good mom!!! ğŸ˜"
I definitely feel like there's a fine line between preserving a dead person's memory and treating their memory like a cheap characterization, where you embellish things that didn't happen or imagine scenarios they were never in.
I don't know what any of the dead people in my life would be like if they were around today. I don't know if they would be MAGA (God I hope not), if they would remember my birthday, or, hell, if they would even still be talking to me. There's just so many what-ifs. Who am I to speak for them just because they no longer have a voice?
I just think the whole "Aww, [dead person and/or pet] would've really liked this!" is so false, because after a while that phrase starts being used for everything and then, sooner or later, the memory of the dead person starts shifting and morphing into something else. The other day I caught myself saying, "Aww, the dog would've really liked this park!" before I stopped and remembered that my dog hated other dogs and hot weather. She would've hated that park and probably would've pulled me down the sidewalk angrily until we got back in the air-conditioned car. The whole "[Dead person] would've loved..." is most of the time just an idealized fantasy.
That's why I think it's important to stick to stories. I like telling stories about the dead people in my life. Me: "Remember when grandma had that breakdown in the middle of Walmart?" Everyone: "Uh, no??" Well, I do, cause that was the real her. She was a little crazy, but that's a story that's authentic to the person she was. Making up hypothetical situations and imagining her placement within them isn't.
Some people might like the power of rewriting someone else's life and telling someone else's story, being their spokesperson, but not me. If you ask me about [dead person] I'm just gonna tell you the honest answer: I don't know.