Holiday Weeks
It's been an odd week. Erin's grandfather died on Christmas day. Yesterday, we had the funeral in Jasper, AL. Erin and I stayed at my parent's lake house on Smith Lake, which is about half an hour from the funeral home.
Funerals are weird. I don't enjoy being at them. Everyone is in a very awkward place. Well, at least the ones I've been to. I don't see a lot of my extended family. On my mom's side, I've only seen my aunts and cousins once since I was in grade school when my grandfather died. There is bad blood on with my mom's sisters, and trying to ignore the gorilla in the room while trying to deal with the elephant in the room is simply nuts. To boot, in the South where there is a predominant Christian population, there is always a dynamic between what is expected and how people feel. The expectation is that the deceased has gone to heaven, which is good, while people still feel sad that the person has died.
It's especially emotionally difficult when the funeral is for someone who suffered a lot before her or she died. There is at once a sense of relief that there is no more suffering and a sense of sadness at his or her passing. This time, I didn't know most of the people. I don't know many people on Erin's side of the family, beyond her aunts and uncles. The funeral was people on her dad's side of their family. It was pretty removed. So, in the midst of the emotional confusion of Christian death and the death of the suffering, I was in the mist of the confusion of meeting a lot of people that I didn't know. It's hard to be happy to meet people when a respected person's body is in the other room.
The other weird thing about funerals is that people always comment on how good the body of the deceased looks. It's one of those cliche things that I don't get commenting on. But, then again, the whole funeral thing still feels odd to me.
I told Erin that I want to be cremated, then have a big party in my honor with my ashes in the middle. She asked if she could put a party hat on me. I said that was fine. She said she'd do whatever she wanted with me since I'd be dead. I tried to make some legal claim, if I put it in my will, but I don't know if that's possible. So, if I go before she does and if any of you are in a position to badger her about it, do your best to make sure I'm celebrated, rather than mourned. If it doesn't work out how I want it to, someone throw a party for me.
Funerals are weird. I don't enjoy being at them. Everyone is in a very awkward place. Well, at least the ones I've been to. I don't see a lot of my extended family. On my mom's side, I've only seen my aunts and cousins once since I was in grade school when my grandfather died. There is bad blood on with my mom's sisters, and trying to ignore the gorilla in the room while trying to deal with the elephant in the room is simply nuts. To boot, in the South where there is a predominant Christian population, there is always a dynamic between what is expected and how people feel. The expectation is that the deceased has gone to heaven, which is good, while people still feel sad that the person has died.
It's especially emotionally difficult when the funeral is for someone who suffered a lot before her or she died. There is at once a sense of relief that there is no more suffering and a sense of sadness at his or her passing. This time, I didn't know most of the people. I don't know many people on Erin's side of the family, beyond her aunts and uncles. The funeral was people on her dad's side of their family. It was pretty removed. So, in the midst of the emotional confusion of Christian death and the death of the suffering, I was in the mist of the confusion of meeting a lot of people that I didn't know. It's hard to be happy to meet people when a respected person's body is in the other room.
The other weird thing about funerals is that people always comment on how good the body of the deceased looks. It's one of those cliche things that I don't get commenting on. But, then again, the whole funeral thing still feels odd to me.
I told Erin that I want to be cremated, then have a big party in my honor with my ashes in the middle. She asked if she could put a party hat on me. I said that was fine. She said she'd do whatever she wanted with me since I'd be dead. I tried to make some legal claim, if I put it in my will, but I don't know if that's possible. So, if I go before she does and if any of you are in a position to badger her about it, do your best to make sure I'm celebrated, rather than mourned. If it doesn't work out how I want it to, someone throw a party for me.