On Not Saying the Word
- info1073428
- Feb 27
- 5 min read
I do not struggle with death.
Let me clarify that before anyone lights a candle and assumes I am unraveling.
I understand death. I respect it. I have observed it from hospital rooms and church pews and the uncomfortable folding chairs arranged beside graves that never quite look real until the dirt starts moving. Death is not confusing to me. It is the most predictable thing we have.
What I struggle with is the word.
*Dead.*
It is abrupt. It is efficient. It slams the door before you have gathered your coat.
And when it comes to my friend, I find I cannot quite say it.
He is—what?
Gone feels temporary, like he stepped out to get ice and will return mildly irritated that no one refilled the tray. Passed sounds like a polite Southern euphemism, the kind we use when we want to keep our gloves on. Lost implies negligence, as if we set him down somewhere and forgot to check behind the couch cushions.
Dead is accurate.
Dead is also rude.
I have no philosophical crisis about mortality. People die. They have always died. They will continue to do so with stubborn consistency. The South, in particular, has never been squeamish about this. We host visitations with casseroles and strategic lighting. We gather in fellowship halls and retell stories that improve slightly with each telling. We wear dark suits in humidity that should be illegal and nod solemnly while calculating how long before someone says something unintentionally funny.
We know how to do death.
We do not know how to do finality.
My friend—there it is again, that instinct to shift tense—*was* the kind of man who filled a room without raising his voice. Not because he was particularly loud. Because he was particularly present. He had opinions, of course. Southern men always do. But his were delivered with a dryness that made you lean in instead of recoil.
He had a way of pausing before saying something cutting, as though giving you one last opportunity to behave properly before he proceeded.
I appreciated that about him.
When I say I cannot say the word, it is not denial. I was there. I saw the hospital room. I saw the stillness that does not resemble sleep no matter how generously you frame it. I understand biology. I understand that hearts stop and lungs follow and the rest is paperwork.
What I do not understand is how someone who occupied space so completely can now occupy none.
That is where the word feels insufficient.
Dead suggests absence.
And he is not absent.
He is in the way I automatically look to my left during certain conversations, expecting commentary that will not arrive. He is in the phrases I almost text before remembering there is no one to receive them. He is in the reflexive thought, *He’ll have something to say about this,* followed by the quiet realization that he will not.
Dead feels too small for that.
The South, bless us, has developed an entire linguistic gymnastics routine to avoid saying it. We say he “went on home.” We say she “is with the Lord now.” We say they “passed on.” We will twist verbs into origami before we allow that hard syllable to land.
I used to roll my eyes at that.
Call it what it is, I would think. There is dignity in accuracy.
And yet here I am, performing the same verbal acrobatics.
Because accuracy is not the issue.
Finality is.
When you say dead, you shut down possibility. There will be no more lunches. No more side comments muttered under breath. No more raised eyebrows across crowded rooms. No more shared glances that translate entire paragraphs without moving lips.
There is something violent about that.
We attended the funeral, of course. In the South, attendance is not optional. If you have ever borrowed a ladder from a man, you attend his funeral. If you have ever sat beside him at a football game and complained about referees, you attend. If you once argued with him about politics and later reconciled over bourbon, you absolutely attend.
It is civic duty.
The preacher said the expected things. Good man. Faithful friend. Called home. There were nods. There were sniffles. There was one story that made the room laugh inappropriately loudly, because grief and humor are distant cousins who insist on arriving together.
I did not cry.
Not because I am stoic. Because I was busy editing language in my head.
*He was.*
I dislike that construction.
Was feels like a demotion.
He is still my friend. The fact that he is no longer breathing seems, in some irrational way, secondary to the years of evidence suggesting otherwise. You do not undo decades of conversation with one medical event.
And yet.
Dead.
There it is again, sitting there with all the warmth of a tax form.
What unsettles me is not the inevitability of death. It is the speed with which the world adjusts. By the following week, the town resumed its rhythm. The diner still opened at six. The courthouse still held traffic hearings. Someone repainted their shutters. Life did what it always does.
It continued.
This, I find, is both comforting and offensive.
Comforting because the machinery of existence does not grind to a halt for any one of us. Offensive because it does not grind to a halt for any one of us.
He is not here. And yet the lawn still needs mowing.
There is something profoundly Southern about the way we handle that tension. We acknowledge loss. We deliver food. We stand awkwardly in living rooms and say, “If you need anything…” knowing full well no one will specify what that anything is.
And then we move forward.
Not because we are callous.
Because we must.
I find myself wanting to call him. To tell him about something absurd I witnessed at the grocery store. To complain about a mutual acquaintance whose personality has not improved with age. To ask his opinion on a decision I have already made but would like validated.
That reflex is what makes the word stick in my throat.
Dead suggests silence.
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