Heirarchy of Grief

So, you might have heard that Maureen Stapleton, 80, died over the weekend of chronic pulmonary disease.

You might have also heard that Dana Reeve, 44, died last week of lung cancer.

Most of the obituaries about the former have gone out of their way to point out that she smoked, one even went so far as to call her a "legendary smoker," while all of the obituaries about the latter have also gone out of their way to point out that she'd never smoked.

My question is this: why is it anybody's business whether they smoked or not?

Because you know what the implication is, don't you? Maureen Stapleton, because she smoked, brought on her own death. Dana Reeve, however, did not---and boy did her PR people ever make sure EVERYONE and their brother knew she hadn't gotten her lung cancer because she'd fired up a Marlboro once upon a time.

The first time I ever read the phrase a "heirarchy of grief" was in an article in the New York Times a few months after 9/11. I vaguely remember the article being about division of all of the donations received and how this "heirarchy of grief" was making itself known because it was suggested that the families of firefighters and police officers should receive more money than the families of civilians who had died in the attacks because they'd raced into the buildings, while the others had run out. While the government had to eventually bring in someone to decide who got how much the phrase has always stuck with me because while one would assume that death would be the universal leveller, it's really not.

It seems like a small thing that someone smoked during their life. It's not that big of a deal, really. It's just a habit, after all. And it's one you can have and people might never know about it. (Believe me, it's possible.) Yet, here we have two obituaries and both of them mention the smoking or non-smoking habits of the deceased. It's nobody's business---in either case. It seems to me that the media is, yet again, inserting bias into their work. After all, the obituaries seem the perfect place for---once again---hammering home the point that smoking kills. They're attempting to create the same sort of heirarchy of grief with announcing someone was a smoker---or in Dana Reeve's case making sure people feel badly for her by announcing the tragedy of lung cancer without smoking to blame it on.

I do not enjoy the idea that some obituary writer gets to slap on the morality police badge and shape the reader's image of the deceased by listing out their non pc individual habits. It's no one's business that Maureen Stapleton smoked. Really and truly. Conversely, it's no one's business that Dana Reeve didn't.

After all, they're both dead. What does it matter?

Posted by Kathy at March 14, 2006 03:40 PM | TrackBack