A bit of a smell

We normally honour a person’s last wishes without much thought. We will happily play a Frere Brothers’ song at Muriel’s funeral, or scatter Donny’s ashes on the Loyalist Parkway. If the wishes seem a touch irrational, no big deal, as long as they are basically harmless. However, the innocuous sounding last wishes of a recently deceased New Jersey woman raise some difficult questions.

Elaine Fydrych’s obituary stated “Elaine requests, ‘In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary Clinton.’’’ Ms. Fydrych was not a particularly political person, according to her husband, but grew to dislike Ms. Clinton over her handling of the attack on the US compound in Benghazi, Libya.

As a former lawyer, I feel it my obligation to point out right away that Ms. Fydrych has little chance of enforcing those wishes from her current position. Nor do I consider that either attending her funeral or pausing to express a pang of sympathy to those who survived her creates a legal duty to her estate to honour her wishes. You’re welcome. The bill is in the mail.

This request does put you right on the spot if you’re one of those Americans who knew Ms. Fydrych and wants to honour her memory, but who is also a fervent Clinton supporter (All right, all right, Hillary: you can go and make history and be president. Just leave me alone). And even if you weren’t going to support Ms. Clinton, the attempt to link honouring a deceased person by forfeiting your civic duty to make your own mind up and vote accordingly, has a bit of a smell to it.

It’s one thing to appeal to the mind, so as to lay out your own reasons for denying Ms. Clinton your support. It’s another thing to trade on an appeal to the conscience (so as to give the impression that a person won’t have cared about you if he or she decides to support Ms. Clinton). It’s a little bit like saying, “If you want to my permission for you to marry my daughter, sonny boy, you’d better first buy 10 tickets from me for this 50/50 draw.”

You might also wonder about just how productive Ms. Fydrych’s appeal will be. For every person who says to himself, “Ah, well if that’s what Elaine wanted, and it was her dying wish, it must be the right thing to do,” there is another person muttering to herself,“That darned Elaine Fydrych and her last wishes—always trying to have the last word. I’ll make my own mind up thank you very much. In fact, now I think about it, I might just vote for Hillary to show her I’m in charge of my own mind.”

And what happens if circumstances change? What if an orange wave swamps the U.S. and Donald Trump’s hair (with, unfortunately, mouth and body attached) becomes the other name on the presidential ballot? Or if Ms. Clinton plunges into a raging Hudson River and rescues a puppy from certain death? Can you say with any certainty that your friend Ms. Fydrych would not have changed her mind even in these circumstances, particularly because she was always one for giving people a second chance?

If this practice of using last wishes as leverage begins to catch on, you can imagine the scenarios. Would you be surprised to see a death notice stating, “Muriel requests that everyone forget about the Frere Brothers and go home and listen to the Monkees’ first album for three hours straight, because they really were a better band than people give them credit for”? That would be pricing loyalty at three hours of wasted time. How about one stating “Donny’s last wishes were that you not bother about that Loyalist Parkway stuff and go and cash in your retirement savings to bet on the Toronto Maple Leafs to win the 2016 Stanley Cup. Go Leafs Go!”? That would be a loyalty test—putting boosterism ahead of common sense at a significant and likely disastrous personal cost.

Perhaps if a trend develops, last wishes can acquire a market value. Will Betty’s obituary read that she wishes people to go out and “try new cherrymint flavour Juicy Fruit Gum: the taste is going to move ya”? Don’t bet that it won’t happen: consider what advertising did to the ‘people’s’ Internet.

All of which has got me to thinking about my own last wishes. How about “As well as flowers, David requests that you not seek to ascertain what his last wishes were.” At least with flowers, I’d have a better chance of passing the smell test.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca