About A Funeral

My dad passed away last week.  He had cheated death for 89 years, spending the final 70 smoking Lucky Strike or Marlboro cigarettes, at least when he wasn't using Red Man chewing tobacco.

I'm not going to eulogize him here.  There was plenty of that done last week by others, and I wouldn't be that good at it anyway.  By the time I was a teenager, my dad was in his 50s, and there's a lot I don't know well about his earlier years.

But I do want to write about my observations of the visitation and funeral, and what I think my dad would have thought about what went on.

The presentation of the casket and the memorials were very nice -- almost too nice.  It was all very calming, and the flowers/plants/statues are good for both the receivers and the givers.  But while I think my dad would have liked that, I think he would have hated the cost of the jewelry box-looking casket.  There's no good alternative short of cremation, but he was a frugal man.

The visitation was an exercise in stamina for the family.  With an immediate family that included my mom and all nine children and assorted spouses, there were a whole lot of visitors who made their way through the receiving line.  There was no break from 4-8pm.  I think my dad would have been surprised, and pleased, at all of the relatives and friends who were there.

The funeral service was respectful, and traditional, and unnecessarily sad.  My dad was a traditional man, a military veteran, someone who I think would have liked the formality of the service.  For me, it was fine except for the music.  So slow and somber.  A funeral is supposed to be a celebration of a person's life, right?  Shouldn't the music be more celebratory?  Makes no sense to me.

The short time at the burial site in the cemetery was difficult for some, but not all.  After the final words are spoken, it's apparently become a thing for mourners to stay and watch the casket be lowered into the vault, and then into the ground.  I suppose it's an attempt at closure for some, but it seemed to me to just prolong their grief.  I didn't stay for that, and I think my dad would have wondered what the hell we were still doing there by that point, and why we weren't doing something more productive.

All in all, I felt sad through my initial viewing of the body prior to the visitation, and again near the end of the funeral mass.  It was especially difficult seeing other family members having a hard time.  But other than that, I mostly felt calm inside.  It was much, much  easier than the prior week, when the immediate family came home to say a final goodbye prior to his death.

My dad lived a good long life.  It was very tough to see him go, but his health was failing, and his quality of life was getting poor.  He went to church the entire way through, praying that he might go to heaven.  He knew as much as anyone that you can't get there if you're still living.