> If a serial killer murders your father, we're going to react differently than if your father dies of a heart attack.
What matters, to me, is that I can no longer speak to a person. How that came about is very, very minor compared to that. Even knowing that we all will die some day does not change the simple, banal, them-shaped gap someone leaves. That gap is what remains, what created it does not. I'm just speaking for myself, but that I do.
How and why people die is no doubt very important when it comes to very removed people using tragedies, which was very much the case with 9/11. For them it's the other way around: the gap never really mattered and is soon utterly forgotten, while that evil deed none of us most forget remains as long as it's useful. I remember families of victims speaking out against war after 9/11, and mostly being ignored by a nation angry on their behalf. The dead were exploited more than honored, if you ask me.
What matters, to me, is that I can no longer speak to a person. How that came about is very, very minor compared to that. Even knowing that we all will die some day does not change the simple, banal, them-shaped gap someone leaves. That gap is what remains, what created it does not. I'm just speaking for myself, but that I do.
How and why people die is no doubt very important when it comes to very removed people using tragedies, which was very much the case with 9/11. For them it's the other way around: the gap never really mattered and is soon utterly forgotten, while that evil deed none of us most forget remains as long as it's useful. I remember families of victims speaking out against war after 9/11, and mostly being ignored by a nation angry on their behalf. The dead were exploited more than honored, if you ask me.