Eclectic Funeral

One of those strange things we have to wrestle with as we age is that one of the rare times, and for many of us the only time, we will be celebrated (hopefully) is at our funeral, a thing we can’t consciously attend. We can’t even dictate what it really is, or means. We’re just the reason for it happening. 

We can plan it, we can leave notes and guides, but in the end what it is is what those we leave behind need it to be and if there’s no one left behind then we’re merely a footnote in a ledger. 

I have always had a hard time getting my head around the idea that I have put together events, alone or with others, and no matter what it was, or how hard I worked on it I could never reckon how people would interact with it. 

Never. 

Their experiences were their own. 

I could only set the proverbial table. 

Just like with our kids, once they go out into the world, to daycare, to school, to life, they are living a life you never can. You will never fully understand it and you just have to hope it makes them happy and that you’ve done enough to prepare them for it. 

God, that’s a scary thought though. 

So it comes to our funerals. 

We lived our lives, and now that it’s over, it’s up to those that felt connection to us to reckon with what that death means and what marking it means. 

Maybe it’s joyful, and people can laugh and sing and tell stories about us. 

Maybe it’s mournful and the weight of our loss is too great to process. 

Maybe it’s both. 

Maybe it’s neither. 

Whatever it is, it’s the one party we can never truly attend. 

I had a friend that died young and it was strange because his funeral wasn’t anything he would have liked. It had music he would have hated, had someone playing an acoustic guitar which he would have hated, and it was religious which he would have hated. 

Truth be told, I hated it for him. 

I do understand though that the funeral, THAT funeral, was for his father though. 

It was for his family. 

It was for them to try to get their head around this new reality. 

A cousin’s funeral last year started beautifully, with an End of Watch service from the police, as he was an officer, but then things devolved into religious political extremism that felt gross to me. 

Again though, it was the family’s pastor so they must have bought into what he was selling and if it brought them comfort then it is what it is. 

I was surprised by an aunt’s funeral just a couple months ago because I learned things about her, my late uncle, and about what they meant to my family that I didn’t know. It was sad, sure, but it was also joyful, a celebration of her life and faith. 

At a funeral for a friend today I wondered if there weren’t ways that would better help us deal with the loss. 

There’s no magic way to do it, but perhaps there are ways to help us move forward. 

I thought about not having the funeral like a class, or like a sermon, but like a singing circle, or a story circle. We have the coffin or the urn at the center and chairs are gathered around it in a circle and it’s less formal. Maybe people speak, tell stories, tell jokes. Relive moments with that person. Maybe they read something that reminds them of the deceased. Maybe it just makes it so that person is the center of attention one last time and not a speaker. 

This is about them. 

You may need a conduit though. 

Maybe it’s a religious figure. 

Maybe it’s a family member or loved one. 

Maybe, just maybe it’s a storyteller. 

A professional that can learn about the loved one and tell a story of their life. 

Isn’t that a fascinating idea?

A crazy one, sure, but a good one too. 

A preacher can do it, sure, but they also are just taking notes about highlights you recall. They pepper in some Bible stuff and then tell another story.

That works for some people. 

But what of irreligious folks?

And how many of us are up to telling the story of our loved ones?

I was asked to speak at a friend’s funeral once and I wasn’t great. 

I didn’t know what to say. 

I dunno that we ever do. 

I guess what I am saying is that in our grief, we should honor and remember the dead as well as the living and find a way to serve both. And maybe, just maybe there’s a way to evolve what funerals are and mean and how they can be held. 

I am sure somewhere out there the ideas I offer are being done, and have been done for hundreds of years, but for me, a celebration of me is far more appealing than a sad lament for my passing. 

I am gone, light a candle to my memory and set the sky alight with it and with the stories of our times. 

…c…

Chris is only dead inside. For now.