Forgive me for saying this, but what kind of people go to the funeral of a dead child whom they have never met? Thousands of people waited in line for hours to get into the memorial service for Sandra Cantu, the little girl who was killed in Tracy, California in what has got to be one of the more depressing cases of pedophilia and murder we've seen in a while. It's not that I don't understand the impulse. Grief and horror are compelling. God knows I read every article about this case and even searched the web once or twice to see if new details had been discovered. But the impulse to slow down and watch as the jaws of life pry the corpse from the wreckage or to stare at the prosthetic limb, while natural, isn't one a person should be proud of. The only thing you're honoring by showing up at the funeral of a child you don't know is your own shameful curiosity.
There's a reason that the word 'pornographic' has meaning beyond the merely sexual. We use it to refer to material that's sexually explicit, true, but also to that which is lurid or sensational. There's no doubt that some of the incessant coverage of this poor child's gruesome rape and murder verged dangerously on pornographic (not the former sense, but the latter). There's something unseemly about the 'mourners,' too. All these people who've never met her, yet are so 'moved' by her murder that they travel miles and wait for hours to 'pay their respects.' What's really motivated their compulsive curiosity?
It's creepy.
Thank you for saying so eloquently what I felt, but couldn't quite articulate.
Comment created on May 1, 2009 at 9:48 PM
thank you! i couldnt agree more
Comment created on May 7, 2009 at 11:59 AM
grief whore checking in here.
i live in the San Joaquin County and all i can offer you is my perspective. although Tracy is a smallish city it remains the small town attitude it had before it grew exponentionaly during the big, bad housing boom and the Bats (Bay Area Transfers) migration. folks around them there parts fancy themselves to be small towners who know everyone even if they don't really.
speaking for myself only i guess i identified too much with this family in their horrific loss even though i was nauseated by the "outpouring of support". i have 4 daughters and honestly, i saw them in the last video of little Sarah Cantu as she skipped happily home only to be distracted. i imagined my son, the same age, being easily guiled like she was and i was chilled, sickened and attracted the daily reports of the crazy-assed goings on in that neighborhood from the time she was reported missing until the arrest of her alleged murderer from my 17 y/o who works as a barista at the starbucks just around the corner of that trailer park.
creepy and shameful curiosity? you are likely to be correct. but living in the community and living with the the non-stop buzzing of the media flies and gnats in our community that reminded us that there were monsters we can not protect our children from well i guess you had to be there to begin to get why so many of us showed up to leaflet the community, walk through orchards fields and along irrigation ditches and show up to the memorial at West High.
so what is my penance? i gladly accept it.
Comment created on May 10, 2009 at 12:55 AM