Kwame Anthony Appiah writes a column called “The Ethicist” for the New York Times. In the August 20 edition, he published his reply to a question from a man who was considering attending the memorial service of his father—a man who, by his account, treated him shamefully nearly all his life.[1]

On one hand, I appreciate the man’s dilemma. Both attending and not attending are fraught. On the other hand, I myself am committed to the idea that some good thing ought to happen as a result of my attending, something that would not happen if I did not. Furthermore, I need for “good thing” in that sentence to mean something I, myself, would regard as a good thing, not something abstractly worthy, like “fulfilling a duty” for instance.

Among the first few sentences of Appiah’s response are these:

“You can’t mend your relationships with the rest of your father’s family while they treat your anger, rather than his abuse, as the problem. This will have to be addressed if you want decent relationships with them. But I doubt you’ll be able to set that right at the memorial.”

I want to come back to Appiah’s advice. He eventually and guardedly recommends attending “if you can bear to.” It is not that recommendation alone, but the reasoning underlying it that I liked. His first point in the paragraph I quoted is that so long as the family treats your alienation and anger as the problem, there is really nothing you can say. I agree. If you are the problem, your remarks, what you think of as “your truth” or even as “the truth,” will never be accepted and may very well do further damage.

The second point in Appiah’s paragraph is that if relationships with the other members of your family are ever to become “decent,” what happened to you will have to be addressed. I agree. “Addressed” does not mean that the family is going to come around to seeing your common history in the way you see it, but it does mean that you and they will need to hear and to know how that history is understood by each family member and that will need to be the basis on which that family member is part of the discussion.

That may sound like I think they should “agree to disagree.” I think the stakes are too high to simply park “these events” on the sideline. I would be prepared to see the relationships continue even at some cost to the participants provided that the discussions that sustain those relationships continue within a common frame of reference—a common core of events and a common core of values. Otherwise, I see more harm being done than healing.

The third point in Appiah’s paragraph is, “… I doubt you’ll be able to set that right at the memorial.” The man’s history with his father and with his siblings has been long and difficult. It is not hard to appreciate that he would like for “the truth to be told” or even for “relationships to be mended.” Still, is the memorial service the right place for that? It is hard to think so.

The one thing he could be assured of accomplishing is to take the experience of the memorial—the consideration of the life of the man as your siblings witnessed it—away from them and to substitute for that “the truth” of his own experience. That I think he could do just by being willing to export the costs. But if he could do only that, how would he justify it?

I said I was a fan of achieving good things. There are a few good things available. Honoring whatever fragment of the father’s life you are able to honor would be a good thing. Coming as close as you can to appreciating that life as the siblings experienced it would be a good thing. It would be a costly gift, certainly, but generosity like that might have an effect on the siblings. Indeed, it is hard to think that something less costly would have such an effect.

Finally, using the memorial service as a way to refocus yourself on the kind of life you want to live would be a good thing. To focus on your own life in the light of its ending and its celebration, would require you to set aside all kinds of false comparisons. You are not living your life so as to be as different from your father’s life as you possibly can. That is just another form of bondage. Instead, you are summoning up from within yourself the image of the life you want to have lived. You are making that notion of your life available to your own family, certainly, and to the extent possible, to the family of your deceased father.

You are transcending that old life. You are proposing a life of another kind entirely, one that will cost you every burden you cannot carry for the distance and that will gain you the full expression of every good you can find within yourself.

That last point might require a little practice. It would not be too early to start now.

[1] Appiah has written a book with the title The Lies That Bind, which makes me think he knows something I should pay attention to.