Our residents attend many more funerals than you do

“Our residents attend many more funerals than you do” is Martha Lian’s reply to a city politician who questions why an Oslo residential centre keeps suits for its residents. The line gives the clothing a reason grounded in the residents’ experience: funerals are a familiar part of their lives, not an exceptional occasion imagined from the outside.

The Occasion and the Reply

The exchange takes place in the centre’s storeroom. A group of politicians has come to assure themselves that living standards in Oslo’s residential facilities are adequate. One politician notices the stock of suits and argues that such clothes are inappropriate for the centre’s clientele. Martha responds with a single sentence that reverses the implication of the question: the suits are needed because residents attend funerals more often than the visitors do.

Meaning and Context

The remark presents the suits as practical provision rather than misplaced formality. Its force comes from the contrast between the politician’s assumption about what residents need and Martha’s knowledge of the lives they lead. The word “many” makes the disparity explicit, while the direct comparison puts the outsiders’ distance from those lives into the sentence itself.

The line also accompanies a small, immediate instance of hope. Martha is helping a new resident try on clothes after he says he intends to look for work and needs a suit to appear professional. She knows the plan may not last, but welcomes it as a temporary break from what she describes as the centre’s relentless movement toward rock bottom. The donated pinstriped suit is slightly too big, yet it gives the resident something concrete to try on alongside his stated intention to change direction.

A Saying Anchored in the Centre

Martha’s answer is not an abstract defence of the centre’s standards: it is spoken while she sits by the storeroom door and watches the resident try on his third pair of suit trousers. The scene connects the politician’s criticism to the centre’s everyday work—keeping clothes available, offering them to residents, and making room for uncertain plans. The sentence endures as a compact expression of that work and of the distance between institutional assumptions and lived experience.