Letting go is painful.Whether it be a son or daughter, a mother or father or even a close friend, going through the stages of grief after losing a loved one can be a trying experience for anyone.Our character as humans is determined by how we handle great moments of duress.As hard as we may try, we will never escape death. But we can redefine how we think and talk about the touchier of two inescapable events — along with taxes.Consider a ruling the Pentagon made Feb. 26. Defense Secretary Robert Gates lifted the ban on media coverage of flag-draped coffins returning home from battle at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, according to CNN. The secretary also requires families of the fallen to have the final say as to whether footage will be shot.Advocates of opening the base to the media argue anonymity of the flag-draped coffins makes it impossible to identify anyone in particular. The footage shows our troops coming home not as individual sons and daughters, but as the heroes we correctly make them out to be.The ban had been in place since 1991. The Defense Department won’t confirm it, but mainstream consensus about the ban stems from CNN running footage of a press conference where then-President George H. W. Bush made a joke about his health to the media. In another context, the joke wouldn’t have been frowned upon, except CNN was running a picture-in-picture of live coverage of fallen American soldiers returning home after battle in the first Gulf War.No one in America feigns support for our troops. However unpopular our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be, those soldiers putting their lives on the line for our freedoms deserve the utmost respect and gratitude from every single American citizen.But honoring them isn’t limited to a bumper sticker or a yellow ribbon.Secretary Gates is to be commended for the reversal of this ban, as our troops became heroes the second they signed up for public service to our nation.Dealing with the loss, though, is completely different.Yet, we can even learn about ourselves and build on our own character through Facebook.For anyone with friends on Facebook who have since passed on — including myself — their profiles, like our friendships, are frozen in time, serving as an interactive photo album one would thumb through to reminisce.This isn’t to say these profiles shouldn’t be taken down at the request of their families. If a family feels their loved one’s profile should be taken down, Facebook should take it down.But the solace provided by being able to log into history, sifting through old wall posts and status updates, make dealing with death much more cathartic.In the profile of a friend — I believe a friendship does not end with death — we see a snapshot of their lives when we knew them best. We see their tastes in music, movies and books and we reflect on the good times had in better days.We can even connect to others who knew our friends in the hopes of linking pieces of them together to mold a fuller perspective of the ones we love.In that sense, we honor them.We honor them not with the same, empty line, “They’re off to a better place.” We honor them by remembering where that place lies. We find that place in our own hearts and minds, with unending love and unyielding reverence.In letting go of our friends, we build character in ourselves and ultimately take up the work our heroes provided for us.Eric Freeman, Jr. is a 22-year-old political science junior from New Orleans.
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