The elephant in the room!

"What we did Friday night, if you want to know 

"Friday was a dark day though we didn’t talk about it because we had dinner with two young newlyweds and a friend who recently lost her husband, so we kept it light....

"It was a happy dinner party. The young wife is French and we got talking about American colloquialisms and she was fascinated by “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” and “easy as pie” for which she offered “mettre les doigts dans le nez,” (sticking fingers up the nose), meaning: no big deal, nothing to brag about."  Garrison Keillor

    Keillor mentions in another paragraph he'd recently at lunch with the friend who died. "It was a happy dinner party."  No need to be tiresome and acknowledge the pain or the grief of the widow...let's just be happy and gay and never mind about the widow, recently thrust into the land of grief.
   How often is the bereaved, the new, or long term, denizen of the land of grief, ignored with her/his grief over the departed the "elephant hiding in the room?' "We kept it light..." How was the widow feeling as she left? Did she want her beloved mentioned, her beloved who had presided at the wedding of the young couple? Who get's to decide that it should be kept light?  Would the widow be spoil sport if she brought up the death of her husband?

   Such are my thoughts as I read this article from Keillor.

Takk for alt,

Al