Put the F-U-N Back into Funeral

Funerals— it is something that people don't do a lot of these days in this country except when they get old.  People don't go to them when they are young, it is thought that there is a certain age when you are not old enough and there is a certain age when you are.  I guess I was old enough to go to my Great Grandmother's funeral, I was one of her pal bearers.  It was 1987 and I was 14 or fifteen.  Almost everyone at the funeral was older than me and the funeral home fit the people that were there, old and yellow.  The carpet and the wallpaper were the same age as the people there.  I don't remember the food, but I remember all the people hiding away in the nooks and crannies.  It was the first opportunity for me to wear my grey suit that my parents purchased for me a few months ago, it was also the last time I wore that suit, really just a jacket, because of growth spurts making the purchase a waste of money.  The good shoes too, a waste.  But I was a pal bearer so perhaps that was the value.  My father's Grandmother and my Grandmother's Mother.  She was light, but the coffin was not.

I was telling this to a friend, who thought I was talking about ancient history; the entire funeral took place five years before she was born.  My Great Grandfather died more than ten years before.  I only have the memory of a presence and the memory of pictures.  But I did not attend the funeral, I was too young.  As funerals go my Great Grandmother was the only big affair.  Both my Grandmothers went with no fanfare, my grandfather too.  My mother's father went unexpectantly when I was very young and I remember him not a whiff.  The funeral was, in that case was done in absentia as the bodies were easier to transfer when they were deconstituted first.  

Funerals are sometimes not even done.  When my friend Piyush died, I did not know about it until six months afterwards.  I just knew that my letters were returned unopened and I never got a phone call.  His parents arrived and picked up his ashes and took them home to India before I ever knew.  When I found out I was struck as if by thunder.

My sister knew more people in Highschool, so she went to more funerals.  The teen funerals and the funerals that occur because people die young.  But many of my friends never get aquainted with death until after it comes home.  I was just talking to one, who had never been to one.  People in her family died a long time ago or died when she was far away.  

Truth be known I ducked out of a few funerals.  One for a seven year old.  Others I could not duck out of, like my charge as an EA, who died when he was fourteen of the ailment that was the reason for me getting to know him.  It was no less tough to go to his funeral even though I knew from my first meeting that he would die soon.  

Two months ago it was my cousin's wife's funeral, died unexpectantly when on vacation.  A crowded affair with lots of mourners, such is what happens when death strikes the middle aged.  It is a tragedy when there are young people, but more when it affects young people.  Actually, I don't know which is worse, a funeral for a young one, or a funeral of a parent of a young one.

Which is a bigger draw an older tragic couple, or a younger person from natural causes, I will know this time tomorrow.  Until then.

I am back.  I went with a friend who has gone to too many funerals and was raised in a similar church to where the service was to be held.  We were there for our friend.  When he saw me he was very happy, as I had told him I would not be there.  

With my cousin's wife's funeral I got the opinion that it was a more difficult funeral.  There was a lot of animosity.  Her side of the family was upset because he was moving away from the city to be closer to his family and they felt slighted as his daughter was going with him.   Her side of the family was very religious and his side of the family was not.  So the funeral in a catholic church was odd.  There were three groups, their side, our side, and the friends.  It should not have been that way, but it was.

My friend's parent's funeral was different.  After fifty years of marriage, the resentments between families had died down.  The two sides were together and they all came out.  There were the friends of the couple and the friends of their children and there were the friends of their grandchildren.  Fear and loathing began in me and my friend.  It is that churches represent so much to so many, those that go and those that won't, conflicting meanings.  

We bailed.  We left after thirty minutes.  There was another thirty minutes to go before the service began.  Our presence would not have any benefit to our friend, other than letting him know that we were there.  

We were there to let him know that we would be there for him afterwards.  

He called me yesterday, after all the guests had left.  When he was alone.  I acknowledged his grief, distracted him from it and reminded him that I would be up soon to help him more.  He has yet to go through their stuff and put it away, sell it or throw it away.  

You know the duties of a friend.  Be there for them when ever that time is.  And draw them out often.  This means traveling for me back to Smallville in boonieland.