Posthumous Respect

Hi

I was wondering...
Is it right, or justified to have a posthumous respect and even love for someone you haven't met? Like say a dead family member that passed before your time. Or a deceased public figure.

The reason I ask is because I greatly admire and look up to my maternal grandfather. He died 15 years before I was born due to a stroke (it was his second in two years, the first of which forced him to live back at home with my grandma and his children). He was in his 50's, pretty young to die.

I've heard many things about him a lot of good (He was a brave hero of WWII, won many medals for bravery and valor, was a kind and easy going man, loved his children, never hit them, never called them names, loved animals, paid child support after my grandparents split) and some bad (a compulsive gambler, cheated on my grandmother, though she was very mean and abusive) This was a man who used to bring home ducklings and baby chicks every Easter for his children. So I'm not sure if I should respect him as I do since I never met him. I only know him through the words of others, and through the scant pictures and films of him.

Do you have any people you feel this way for? Posthumous respect or ambigous feelings?

Raiders112390 said:

Hi

I was wondering...
Is it right, or justified to have a posthumous respect and even love for someone you haven't met? Like say a dead family member that passed before your time.

Click to expand...

I don´t know if it´s right or justified, as you might feel very differently about them, would you have had a chance to meet them.

Nevertheless, I do feel a lot of respect for my deceased grandfather. It´s kind of similar to your story actually.
My grandfather died ( of cancer ) before I could meet him as well. He was also in his 50´s, and died in the same year as I was born.
I only know him through story´s, and like your grandfather, mine also fought in battle. He and my grandmother didn´t get divorced though.

I think it's entirely justified to have that sort of feeling. Edmund Burke said that society is a contract between the living, the dead, and the yet to be born. I think that offers a sort of insight that's sadly lacking when we just talk about freedom and the like. There's more than just the present; there's more than just moments of pleasure. A richer form of happiness or, dare I say, the good, involves looking to those individuals who came before us, and its entirely appropriate to have some deeper feeling towards them.