Friday, September 01, 2006

Funeral

We went to the funeral of my Uncle Ralph today, well he actually was my great-uncle but I’ve always called him Uncle. Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hazel weren’t people we saw often usually once or twice a year and always at the annual Warren picnic. Uncle Ralph was a McDaniel but Aunt Hazel was born a Warren, its one of those things that can make a difference in close-knit communities and small town America.

Today’s funeral wasn’t a particularly sad one, Uncle Ralph would have been 92 in just about 8 weeks and today was more of a chance to celebrate his life. He and Aunt Hazel had been married for almost 71 years; their anniversary is in just three weeks. As a young man he was a farmer, then sold John Deere tractors and went on to become an Assemblies of God preacher. I never knew him when he wasn’t a preacher and I don’t think my Mom has any memories of him before then either. I never heard him preach as my side of the family is Baptist, but he did perform my wedding ceremony. He had a spirit of calm acceptance around him that to me translated as someone who was doing just what he was supposed to be doing and I never doubted that he was a Godly man. Aunt Hazel is quite confident that he is in heaven and that she will be there with him one day.

Today I saw several of my great-aunts and uncles and a whole bunch of my Mom’s cousins that I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Family members caught up with each others lives, showed pictures of kids and grandkids, shared memories they had of Uncle Ralph and each other from times long past. That is one of the enjoyable things about funerals, listening to all the remember whens.

The one thing, okay make that one of the things that really bothers me about funerals is setting up the body for viewing. I mean I hadn’t seen Uncle Ralph is several years but I still remember what he looked like. Why is it so important for people to view an empty shell? Maybe that is why is bothers me, because I do believe it is an empty shell. The spirit is gone, having left at the time the mortal body ceased to function and occasionaly before. The part that made the person, the important part, the part that you either loved, hated, or were totally indifferent to is gone. In my opinion either to be with God in heaven if they are Christians or into a kind of limbo until Jesus returns. This brings me to the other thing that bothers me about funerals; Why do families feel as if they have to spend a small fortune for a special box with all the bells and whistles that the funeral home can sell them just to put an empty shell into? They go on at great length about the air tightness, and weather proofness, and so on and so on. Uh, hello people, it is going into the ground, the person you are burying could care less and I don’t really think your plan on digging them up to make sure the box really conformed to the specifications you were sold. I know, I know it is a way of honoring them and yada, yada, yada. I personally think the money is better spent on a really nice headstone. Something that can be seen, flowers laid at, and that in a hundred years might still be there.

Getting off my soap box now.