For the Love of Funerals
And Why I’ll Be Going to More
I attended the funeral of my friend’s uncle today. Growing up with her own father deceased at a young age and a challenging, to put it mildly, relationship with her mother and stepfather, her uncle and aunt stepped into a nurturing parental role, especially throughout her young adult life. Hence, I knew the loss was monumental. Sitting near the back of the standing-room-only chapel, it felt gratifying to show up for my friend. But in all honesty, I had an ulterior motive for attending; I knew it would be a good funeral. Hear me out. I had the happy fortune to have spent a couple of days at this uncle and aunt’s magical home that sits next to a rock quarry lake. On a quaint, isolated, and coziness scale you might expect three bears to wander in for porridge at any given moment. This is a place where you’ll find a musty boat house filled with fishing gear and kayaks, just waiting to be slipped into the calm, clear water. An Instagram-worthy, hygge-level apartment sits atop the boathouse where a writer like myself could find inspiration for days, weeks(!). I once spoke with my friend’s uncle in his driveway as I was (sadly) leaving his home. We talked about the two chocolate-coated standard poodles that flanked his sides, like majestic sentries, as they eyed me somewhat warily. In those brief moments, I knew I was in the presence of an uncommon individual. I departed feeling an unexplained and certainly unearned soul connection to this place and the people who occupied it. At his funeral, I would learn he was an impossibly accomplished and greatly-respected physician who had traveled the world, created a beautiful family, and above all else, loved to fish.
It’s important to note that I am a descendant of professional funeral-goers. My grandparents were Southern Baptists and finding myself often in their care, I would be toted to every opportunity to “pay our respects” that landed on their calendar. I’d don a Sunday dress and think nothing of prancing straight into the funeral parlor, the pungent scent of lilies hitting me in the face. Comfort and ease if you will around death, were instilled in me from an early age.
I returned home announcing to my spouse, “I love funerals. I think I’ll start going to more of them.” Her response to this proclamation was a look of bewilderment tinged with more than a hint of concern. To me, funerals showcase or rather, allow the best of humanity:
Where else does sobbing openly mix with belly laughs; where it’s ok to hold hands, hug too long, and say “I love you” over and over?
At funerals, people stand up and speak directly from the heart, unedited by the usual social norms, about the mother, the friend, the uncle, they held so dearly. Or, maybe they didn’t hold them nearly as dearly as they had wanted. Maybe in that moment, the finale of the finale, every word and deed that went unsaid, every phone call or stop by that went unmade, comes rushing in with an overwhelming heartache. But this was not the case today. We learned this uncle, this father, this friend, lived a life guided by a set of aphorisms he made sure to share with those left behind. A guidepost if you will, for all who loved him and strive to be more like him. As a man who sat near me cried openly I considered how it’s ironically baptismal; the release, the relief, the cleansing of crying. As the storytelling unfurled around one man’s life, it was plain that nothing had gone unsaid, no event not done. There is clearly comfort in the absence of regret. And that maybe, when our human body dies after a life well lived, we don’t really “go” anywhere. Dr. Wayne Dyer said, “Death is not the end of your journey; it’s just a change of address.”
I’m considering attending more funerals. You know, scanning the obituaries and showing up randomly to learn about someone who has left their human body. No one will know I’m not “supposed” to be there. Certainly, they aren’t going to ask. And just in case they do I’ll be prepared with some pre-funeral obit reconnaissance to hedge that bet. “Oh, I knew Sally from The Humane Society…” I’ll say, scurrying away. What I do know for certain is that I want more of what I had today; what I saw and felt in those around me, and what I learned. Funerals embody the best in all of us, and, sometimes the worst. But that one time I attended a funeral where the cops were called is another piece for another day.