This is a personal reflection.
A middle-aged man died recently, in an accident, but essentially by his own hand. I doubt it was suicide, but there is that possibility. I am not upset, but that fact is making me upset. His death has also triggered unwelcome memories.
The man who died leaves behind a wife and family, and a business. There were LOTS of cars at his funeral. Other people who saw them commented to me how they had filled the large parking area at the funeral chapel and were parked out on the grass near the street.
He & I went to the same school. He lived relatively near me, and sometimes got a lift to school with me. At school he told people that I was chasing him. I wasn’t. I might have been open to the idea: our families were friends and it would have been a “suitable match”.
The things that made it completely unsuitable to me included me catching him watching me getting dressed before school, and them him denying it, saying he was looking for a door. (My bedroom was at the side of the house, nowhere near either the front or back doors.) It could have been an innocent mistake, but his overtly aggressive behaviour towards me after that showed that it wasn’t. He was trying to overpower me. He talked trash about me at school and to my family.
My “crime” was being shocked to find him leering at me through the gap in the curtains (which I hadn’t even noticed was there), and telling my family, who were in the house. We continued to drive him to school, but not for much longer. I objected too strongly. Apparently everyone was bitter about my objections. I’m glad they relieved me of the excruciating car ride with him subtly undermining me to my family.
As adults, in our early 20’s I was having a conversation with his brother outside church, and this man made a huge scene, being very aggressive and insisting that I speak to him instead of his brother. His girlfriend (now wife) was there. I literally called out to her to come and fetch “whatever this is” and sort it out. His brother’s wife came to protect his brother from me, who was apparently painted as some kind of scarlet woman. Fortunately, the man I was talking to explained to his wife that we were talking business, and she is a sane woman. She has been friendly to me ever since.
This man, who I had maybe a dozen conversations with in my life ruined my reputation for absolutely no reason. Or perhaps because of his wounded pride? Or fear of his own reputation being ruined? Maybe he really did accidentally peer into my window, and just seized an opportunity to ogle.
Now he is dead. I’m really not sad.
To be sad, I would have to have some kind of care, or respect, or value for him. I don’t. I’m personally quite pleased the world is short by one toxic male.
Apparently hundreds of other people, including members of my family, are sad. I doubt any of them remember his actions towards me, but they seem to mostly subscribe to the same view, so they’re not going to care.
Probably his death brings up issues for them about mortality, and life, as well as genuinely missing his friendship.
For me, it’s just a painful reminder of how easily a man can influence the opinion of others about a young woman. I was still a schoolgirl, naive and innocent, when he started badmouthing me. I had good standing in my school community.
My own lack of empathy about his death made me wonder if this is how many men & women feel when they read news of women being assaulted, raped, murdered. They don’t have an emotional attachment to the victim, so: what difference does it make to them?
I don’t know.
I do know: “Every man’s death diminishes me because no man is an island” (paraphrase of John Donne).
In this instance, his death diminishes me by taking up my mental and emotional energy. And I resent it.
This Got My Attention Today 