Every person exposed to that refusal begins to feel the pangs of not being nourished, which turn into fear or entitlement. Every person who hears another story of deathbed misery and torment begins to starve a little. Every child who is kept from the graveside is starving for a story of how life is, and why, and whether that is just. Instead they get the saccharine drip of blanket reassurance or the empty calories of platitude and metaphor.
