jaeleslie

We went to Lizzette's funeral yesterday. The visitation was from ten to two, and we arrived near the end of that. We found seats in the adjoining room, next to some other friends in the neighborhood, as the funeral director was putting out more chairs. There seemed to be near two hundred people there for the service.

Being sad together this way is a curious thing to me, as I notice everyone is entirely alone in the confrontation with mortality. The loved ones sitting on either side of me are engaged in entirely separate struggles from mine. Lots of little kids wiggling around, and babes in arms, grew restless during the brief remarks, or took naps, and the bitterest offering was the weeping incomprehension of the very young of why she should be gone. The family is getting a lot of support from the community, but still it's hard. Such a fine family, that offers good for evil, and leaves vengeance to the Lord. (Members of Local 236 have been donating their sick time to the bereaved father, praise the good.)

There was a moment, at the beginning of the time that was dedicated to silent reading of the obituary, when I had that feeling that everyone in the place was on the same page (and I don't mean we were actually reading it over again) and we had transcended for that moment our individual solitude. Then there were sung a couple verses of Amazing Grace (which my family, I found out later, had never heard in that deep blues fashion). Some preaching, from her reverend aunt, with some audience response. Praise God. Someone has to stand up and answer the call to try to make some sense of it somehow for us, so we can all go home and move on to the next bit of life on our own -- or with that Holy Ghost near at hand, if you've answered That particular knock at the door. Whatever. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. This one worked for me.

I have some trouble with the language of praise and thanksgiving in the context of funerals. Suppose you have to take the bitter with the sweet but I find no sense in confusing them. After my grandma's funeral I heard an Easter sermon that naturally enough went into the question of Death Where Is Thy Sting? which under the circumstances seemed all too evident to me. My granddad at the time (rest in peace)said I ought to get to church more often if it upset me so much.

Oh fearful meditation! where, alack,
shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?