I’m aimlessly scrolling social media when a familiar face pops up on the screen. It’s my favorite Dateline journalist, Keith Morrison. Immediately I’m filled with agony over what I’m watching. I’m angry that this video exists, that this type of journalism exists. He’s being filmed in fresh grief. The news of Matthew Perry’s death, his stepson, has just broke. It’s everywhere. You cannot escape the headlines and the “rest in peace” posts.
But what I’m seeing isn’t a picture of Matthew Perry being honored and remembered. What I’m seeing is a father, a mother, a stepfather, friends and family being followed in their cars, flashes from cameras so bright it illuminates the entire vehicle. I’m watching moments being captured that are not mine to see, not ours to see. I shut down my app immediately.
This man, this family, should be free from this harsh invasion of privacy. I cannot imagine if there were cameras and film crews recording as my mother’s lifeless body was being taken away on a stretcher. I cannot imagine if there were paparazzi snapping pictures as my family and I sat in the initial minutes and moments of my mother’s death.
We don’t need pictures of someone else’s grief.
Society doesn’t need to see videos of family at the scene of a loved one’s death.
These moments are delicate and vulnerable and intimate and they are not our’s to observe. They are not ours to witness. Not everyone is worthy of witnessing this kind of human experience.
I’m praying so fiercely that a shift in our society happens to allow grief and death to be the sacred and private moments they should be. There is a time and place to be there for people, to wrap them in love, support and comfort. This isn’t it.
Let them grieve. Please, let them grieve.
