so i go to this funeral
she struggled for three years with weird blood disorder and then dies in her sleep.
okay fair enough - - she gets to fight through three years of suffering and takes it all on the chin. Every one who comes to the mic for an hour and half after her internment talks about her ability to face life with joy. Definately cool! But to be honest for me I'm not sure what funerals are all about. Is it some final closing ceremony? so that us blithering humans can finally get it through our head that the person is gone? have we manufactured these ceremonies so that we can somehow hold on selfishly to the one who is departed? what do we hope to accomplish with these end of life rituals? honor? how is it honor to say awesome things about a person who is gone? are we pretending that we are going to assimilate some of the deceased persons qualities? in the end aren't these things just a stark reality of the end we all face?
So here it is what i want when i die
don' t have no stupid preacher get up and try to convert all my unsaved aquaintences. don't sing a bunch of fanciful songs that ring so hollow in the face of sorrow. screw the pomp and circumstance.
when i die teach yourselves all a lesson
your day is coming too
so throw on the music that makes you shiver, and cry, and dance, and laugh, and scream and if you wail wail for your own freaked out fear of this unknown door that awaits us all.
The irish have got something with thier concept of a wake...
somehow a party at someone's apssing seems more appropriate - - but then again maybe thats all funerals really are - - convoluted funerals.
and whatever you do don't go making no damn excuses about how my passsing is somehow screwed up your life. get on with it.
of course if our destiny was some cardboard cut out robotic musical - like we've been taught in Sunday school - maybe there'd be something to be sad about. and of course it's not like you can make heaven into whatever you want it to be.
so good on you ella that you got to go in your sleep and all. and good on eyou that you fought that cursed disease as long as you could. and good on you for smiling through it all. and thanks for reminding me to get on with my life while i've got it.
peace out
3 comments:
Well, i am not sure all of the post made complete sense or something I totally agree with but here is something for you to chew on in return. I think the sadness of someones passing is a human reaction to loss.
Personally would like to say if and maybe better said when you die I will shed a tear and be very sad that you are gone a a friend and fellow "Joe Youth Pastor". I do say though you have taught me many lessons and have made a better person. Your love for kids and the passion to give so unselfishly is outstanding and admirable. So I won't talk at your funeral and share how great you were but I will tell you now. So you know how much I appreciate you.
md
'ppreciate it bro!
out
I think rituals are kind of like fast food establishments. There's comfort in the familiarity. You travel 1500 km from home, walk into the local Mac D and voila you're home again. It's as though you're in your own neighbourhood, your own environment. One aspects of rituals, in my opinion, is that. They provide a known path through an unknown and perhaps unfamiliar territory.
Dad dies and I'm devastated though he's lived a long and fruitful life. Where do we go from here ... well we've been here before when Mom passed and Grandma & Grandpa before that. Even though it's a difficult event in one's journey it's not absolutely ominous because we've been down this path before. There's comfort in the ritual, familiarity in the routine.
The funeral ritual, varied as it is across cultural lines seems to have a common thread woven through it. It seems to me that it is an opportunity for the living to offer their final farewell to the recently departed. Perhaps a closing of the door to 'the other side'. A loved one dies and it seems they take a piece of us with them. Not too far from the truth if we believe that we impart of ourselves to others and they to us.
Part of the pain of a death is the wrenching of this part of the deceased from us. It's akin to a divorce. On some level we've become one and now we must of necessity be two again. A funeral ritual should facilitate this. It provides an opportunity to give recognition to that which has been imparted to us by the one who has passed. To celebrate their life (when appropriate) and to release them (posthumously I suppose) to the afterlife. Release them, not for their sake (as if we could somehow hold them back) but for our sake. To say I walked with you and my life is better for it. Thank you.
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