cellio | funeral practices

Today while we were studying we ended up talking about funeral practices. My rabbi recently did a funeral for a member of an interfaith family, so there was also a priest or minister there and this led to some things my rabbi isn't used to, most notably the open casket and the things said to comfort the mourners. So he asked me how I feel about all that, given that my background is different from his.

I think I've always felt weird about seeing bodies at funerals and viewings. I certainly feel weird about it now. But I did as a kid, too; I was raised to never go into someone else's bedroom when that person was sleeping, and this seemed even more an invasion than that. (The analogy for death was sleep.)

The first two funerals in my life were when I was 5 (in one case) and either 5 or 6 (in the other case). One was my aunt Mary, and her death was not unexpected. (Well, it came as a surprise to me, because no one had told me the reason she kept giving things away when we visited, but it was expected by the adults.) The other was my grandfather, who died without any warning at the age of 50. (Heart attack. No prior problems. Died in his sleep.)

Now, especially in the case of my grandfather, we heard a lot of things like "he's in a better place now" (with Jesus, with the angels, etc). Christianity has a lot of focus on the afterlife, so it makes sense that these ideas would be comforting, especially when someone dies young. The religion of my childhood taught me to look forward to the afterlife -- that this time on earth is just a passing thing, vastly inferior to what awaits if we're good. (Yes, I asked the obvious question early on: if you try to hurry things along to reach that goal sooner, you won't reach it at all.)

This sort of thing never comforted me, though. I guess I was, and am, too much of a here-and-now person; especially in the case of my grandfather, I was a greedy child who wanted him back now. I didn't believe he was in a better place, and even if he was, I wanted him to wait. Five-year-olds aren't very sophisticated, but there you have it.

As an adult, I find the theology foreign. We should live good lives, of course, but because doing so makes this world a better place. God gave us this world to care for and live in, after all. An afterlife, if it exists, is a bonus; this world is certain and that one is not. So when someone dies young it's not a comfort to think about the afterlife; rather, I think about all the things that person was doing or might have done in this world and how we're the lesser for his absence.

I don't believe that death is a punishment; people don't die because they were bad and God zapped them. (Well, I suppose it can happen, but it's not the usual case.) But death is not a reward, either; it just is.

Someday, I hope a long time from now, I'm going to have to face the funerals of my parents. I'll be told lots of things by well-meaning religious people that are supposed to comfort me and that won't; fortunately, I'll also have a community that has a different approach, one that seems to resonate more for me. I'm not sure there's anything else that will produce such a sharp division between what my relatives do and what I do.

I'm not sure all this babbling has a point, really, but I found myself thinking about it after our conversation, and I wanted to write something about it.

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(continued from previous...)

All of this is to say, no, I didn't know how to mourn my mother, either. In fact, it's still coming out in dribs and drabs (and she died in 1982, when I was just barely 25). I find I miss her deeply, with a strong wave of grief, at times like my son's graduation from Middle School (it's a big deal out here...), or when my daughter got her first job, or when she shaved her head and followed Jack Kerouac's example.... It's one of the reasons I'm so grateful that my daughter and I are still friends, and growing closer. She's 23, and still talks to me.

However, when my dad died (in 1996), he and my three sisters and I had all had time to talk about what he wanted. He wanted a miolitary funeral, in Greensboro (where we had grown up, and near to where my step-mother was planning to move), and Masonic stuff, and a party afterward. Since I knew that one of my ex-boyfriend's dad was a Mason, I told my sisters I'd take of that. (Turned out the ex-boyfriend, with whom I'm still very friendly, was himself a Mason, having been sponsored by my Dad. He and his dad took care of all that stuff....

And, as there was no one else, I gave his eulogy. Sitting up and writing that was really hard, and cried then and also during the time I presented it, but the doing of it was very cleansing and helped me get past the shock into the other stages of grief. My favorite moment (if one can be said to have a "favorite" during a eulogy) was when I looked down and saw Dad's brother and sister (of the 4 out of 12 who were still living) with tears running down their faces and laughing at my description of Dad -- in shared happy remembrance -- at the same time.

(It doesn't make the writing any different in my head now to know that he was not always the man I knew, or that he did things I don't approve of. We are all human.)

My daughter reminds me to say that my stepmother (who is only 4 years older than I am, and looks about 20 years older) hated this eulogy. I said things about Dad that weren't all flattering, and I didn't mention G-d anywhere. Clearly I'm just not a good daughter, or a Good Christian. (Laugh!)

Thanks for sharing all of that. For what it's worth, I think it was a good eulogy -- the ones where you only hear about what a superhuman saint the deceased was come off as hype to me. People are people; we have our good sides and our bad. You don't have to dwell on the latter, but you shouldn't pretend they don't exist either.

Your comments about your mother's funeral made me realize that I really have no idea what the organizers are supposed to do in the Roman Catholic tradition. As the older child, I'll be the one responsible for making stuff happen for my parents -- at least for the second one, though of course I'll be helping a lot with the first. I know the "official" stuff -- I know where the paperwork is for the cemetery plots and caskets and stuff they've already bought, and I know what church to call to get a priest, and I assume someone there will direct me in the rest of the funeral logistics. But the family side, I have no clues about. I don't know whether we'll be expected to prepare a spread, or if food will magically appear, or how long/often relatives will show up at the house, or any of that. Hmm.

(When my (paternal) grandmother died 2.5 years ago, it was in the midst of some family strife. The result was that we went to the funeral and a luncheon afterwards at the church, but none of the local relatives invited people home. I don't think that's normal.)

I know that when my parents die I'll be living in two worlds for a few days. I'll have to organize Catholic funerals and do whatever those relatives expect, but that's just the public face for the relatives. That won't be how I mourn; it's foreign to me. I'll mourn as a Jew. My immediate family will be fine with that (and would probably even come to the shiva), and the more distant relatives wouldn't understand or be interested. (Said distant relatives will probably give me flack for not participating in the mass fully like a good Christian should, and my aren't I disrespectful of my parents to refuse to honor them that way? Except that my parents are fully supportive of my religious decisions and they would never ask me to pretend to be something I'm not.)

Talk to them now. The biggest gift my dad gave us was to talk to us about what he wanted, and to even have a notebook with all sorts of things organized in it.

It's not an easy conversation. You've at least got the "official" stuff done -- but make sure that there's at least one easily accessible address book of all the relatives (I ended up hacking someone's email address book for his wife when he died suddenly -- it was awful). Talk about what customs your parents and their community observe, and what they want; ask them who at the church usually organizes such things (usually there's a woman's group or altar committee or some such that tends to do that kind of thing, too).

My friend Glee's husband, who died after a lengthy battle with cancer, wanted balloons and not flowers, and Walt Whitman poetry, and several other things, including an open house afterward. By knowing that in advance, other people than Glee could help arrange things when he did finally go.

Even tho I have no intention of popping off any time soon, life does happen, so I've talked to my kids and one of my sisters and my sweetie about it. I'll probably write it down somewhere, too.

Which reminds me -- if you have any strong feelings about being a vegetable on life support, make sure you have a durable medical power of attorney made out and on file with your hospital, your doctor, your family (sibs and lovers, etc.), etc. I chose Glee -- because she and I have been through several friends' deaths and I trust her to make the right decision, and it's not something I want my next of kin -- my 23 year old daughter -- to have to do. I ended up making that decision for my mother when I was 23, and it isn't something I would put on her if I can prevent it.

hugs to you, M.

p

funeral practices

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Funeral practices