Let the Dead be Dead 2020

Drew Kaufman
Nov 7 · 6 min read
A picture I took and never shared and chances are, without this essay, I probably never would have.

I moved to Los Angeles knowing that I had five friends there. One of them killed themselves before I could make a sixth friend to take their place. It sucked major ass.

My friend was a very talented artist, troubled with the type of shit brain most artists suffer with throughout their lives, compounded with many other personal factors which we only saw in the worst interactions. Three months later I was scrolling through my Instagram when I saw a new post from my dead friend on my feed. This also sucked major ass.

Most people who lose someone they care about will at some point have a dream where it’s suddenly revealed that this person isn’t really dead. For months after my father’s death, I would wake up to a sweat-soaked pillow trying to shake off dreams of dad walking into my apartment like cancer never consumed him. For a brief second, ever so short, the belief that my friend was not really dead stung me in the eye like making lemonade poorly. I quickly came to my senses but found myself conflicted by my friend’s digital resurrection.

My friend, who we’ll call Lauren from now on, chose to be obliterated from this Earth. Lauren’s parents, who are not wrong in their grieving, decided their daughter’s artwork was a legacy that was left behind, albeit one unedited by the original author. This is where things get complicated and how you end up with hologram James Dean starring in a movie fifty years after his death.

This picture is out of focus. Reviewing this photography after my death, maybe someone would say I made an interesting artistic choice, but in life, I beat myself up for fucking up this shot.

Lauren’s finished works, doodles, and etcetera are lacking the proper vetting by the original creator. I think about my own work as a photographer–how mad would I be if someone took one of my unedited photographs and published it? How unrepresentative of my style would it be if someone decided to finish my work for me, or they decided to post it with a serious caption instead of my usual irreverence? I understand the need to share a loved one’s work, or the desire to make it feel as though they never left, but that’s a decision that needs to be made by the artist while they are still alive.

Within months after Prince’s death, his sacred vault was opened and demos, alternative takes, and other miscellaneous scraps were released to ravenous fans. I felt voyeuristic and guilt-ridden having listened to works which the artist himself deemed un-listenable in his lifetime. Specifically, Prince had 35 living years to remaster his masterpiece Purple Rain and decided not to do so. Prince had been fighting anyone who tried to take the reigns on his works since his first album, and since he died unexpectedly without a will, his family was able to quickly sell his autonomy away for millions of dollars, something which Prince never, ever would have done while he was alive.

There is, of course, a morbid curiosity within us all which drives us to pry into the privacy of the dead. The dead cannot consent. An estate is not a legacy, it is a collection of possessions under the guidance of a stranger. You could argue that a loved one isn’t a stranger, but I would say anyone trying to make decisions on behalf of a dead person as that person is creating a parody at best. The nuance is in the ground.

All too quickly are we trying to dig our nails into the slick metal chute as our memories slide further down the slope of time and our love becomes distance. This is where we begin to lie to ourselves and rewrite the past and that is the most dangerous side effect re-animating the dead.

Even calling Lauren “my friend” feels like a chunk of revisionist history. We hadn’t talked in almost two years before her self-inflicted death. She had fought with everyone who ever cared about her, and I fought back just as hard. At some point, we apologized to each other, but I can’t remember that phone call for the life of me, sadly. Maybe calling Lauren my friend is as callous and grasping at straws as sharing her artwork without her guidance. Maybe I, too, am erroneously trying to keep her legacy alive by giving a shit about someone who probably didn’t particularly give a shit about anyone.

Sharing art which you’re not unequivocally proud of requires some vulnerability, which is not something that can be properly replicated by an estate. Also, I feel like someone posing as me would use the word “piss” too much.

My father died when all his blood rapidly tried to escape his body like confused rich men attempting to survive a sinking ship. Several hours later, I hesitated to throw out his shirt stained deep red from his final wrestle. It was the last thing he ever wore, and the closest I would ever be to the man again. What stopped me from saving the shirt, or even a small sample of the fabric was a realization I’ve repeated to my mom a dozen times. When people are alive, they leave us so many gifts, and when they die, they stop. Dad would, on a regular basis, try to give me the ring off his pinky finger. He would try to give me his Star of David chain. He would try to sneak $80 in cash into my pocket as I washed my hands in the bathroom of an Italian restaurant. I didn’t need his last article of clothing, or a sample of his physical body, because I had all the things he gave me in his life. I do have his ring now and that ring has more memories, more physical connection, more meaning intertwined between its electrons than some gross shirt that held him as he passed.

We are selfish, especially when we’re pushed up against the wall by grief. Why can’t we have more gifts? Lauren left us so many gifts when they were alive. Prince left us so many gifts. James Dean left us so many gifts. My father left us so many gifts. So why do we demand more? Because we can’t deal with the finality of anything. Finality sucks major ass, but it’s also inevitable and thus should be respected.

Lauren is gone. Her unfinished projects should remain unfinished because she made the decision to never finish them. It’s a cruel decision, but it was their’s and their’s alone to make. Sometimes I see a new post from Lauren and I pause for a guilty moment to secretly admire it. I respect the rarity of a beautiful drawing by her. The skill and the style even in a quick doodle is definitively her, but Lauren is gone. “Maybe the only reason she never shared it with the world is because she never got around to it,” I think to squelch my cynicism. Then I scroll past it quickly, never leaving a like, as if I was squinting to look at the sun out of curiosity without dealing with the repercussive eyeball burns.

When people are alive, they leave us so many gifts, and when they die, they stop.

I don’t truly know if I am right or wrong by being apprehensive, I just know that the dead are dead, and anything we decide for them afterward is just that: an afterthought, not an afterlife.


All photographs shot by me on actual film. Follow my photography Instagram, @diet_hellboy.

Drew Kaufman

Written by

Director, occasional cartoonist, internet veteran, poet (just kidding). www.ihavehadsextwice.com

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