Dignity: Two Perspectives

I’ve been thinking of two things today. Well, a lot more but, two issues have taken front and centre stage. The Oscars and dignity of burial. Odd pairing! The second, dignity of burial, was the discussion this morning on The 180 with Jim Brown on CBC Radio: “Sprinkling Grandmas’s ashes from your pant leg: is there a right and wrong way to scatter human remains?”

Dignity. How could that be a dignified way to leave this world? But as I thought about it, dignity is not a one size fits all quality. I think of the many memorials, gatherings, or funerals I have attended over the last several decades.  Each was tailored by the generation that raised each person from the beginning throughout their life, long, short or some where in the middle. All of their life experience and finally their wishes. If sending ash surreptitiously down a pant leg, into the soil of a garden or park, is the wish of an individual then isn’t that as dignity conferred.

Then it’s the Oscars. This is the first year I’ve watched the Oscar Awards for many years. It’s the first time in many years I’ve had a television, and been at home to watch. Lots of glitz and glamour. We are entertained, awed and challenged by these movies, seeing only the finished product and maybe staying to watch the credits roll by. This evening I saw many of the faces of those people in the credits. So many more than just the cast of actors. And even then we are not privileged to see all of those that build our entertainment for us. Special make-up artists, cinematographers costume designers, set designers, musical score composers, and so many more - not enough time or space to name them all. More dignity conferred.

“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, 

but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”

~ Michael J. Fox