The Eulogy Paradox
Dostoevsky pointed something out once that’s honestly hard to swallow: the flowers never really get there while you can still smell them.
I have to wonder why we all wait until someone is horizontal in a casket to say how brilliant they were out loud. It’s because living people are a lot of work. Living people are icons one day and a mess the next, but they’re always capable of proving our current opinions wrong. Someone through the door is inconvenient to handle, I guess. At death, they stay safe. You can go ahead and edit their life’s narrative into a legend and their actual reality won’t show up to ruin your speech.
This feels morbid, but it’s real. And it should be what humbles us.
Scripture cuts straight to the heart of this tragedy: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5). We call it a paradox because we spend our lives practicing “hidden love”—saving our deepest affirmations for obituaries rather than dining tables. We mistake silence for restraint, when too often it is just fear dressed up as propriety.
People shouldn’t wait for a funeral to finally feel like a hero to the ones who love them the most. We should just go ahead and break that weird social contract we have built on staying silent. If a coworker, a friend, or your parents changed your identity, just let them know what’s on your mind today. Let them actually feel how much they mattered and what they really imply in your life while they can still shake your hand.
Don’t hold back the truth and those good words. As Proverbs 3:27 urges us: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.” Today, it is in your power. The living room is your stage, not the graveside. Save the beautiful things for the dinner table. They don’t belong on a tombstone.
Thanks for making time to read this message. Like , subscribe and share it to bless your friends and loved ones. Shabbat Shalom! Wishing you a peaceful and restful Shabbat.
