“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” ~ George Eliot.

I don’t know how old I was when I went to my first funeral.  I know that it was not a requirement, even though my father was the minister of the church. But I was probably a teenager and a member of the choir when it was an expectation to attend.  As an adult it feels as if I have attended many, even more as we age, so it appears that funerals are now a fixture of my social calendar.

It seems that we have never quite adjusted to the fact that our lives are finite, that we all will die someday.  Often we will say something like, ‘if I die’ rather than ‘when I die’ and can hardly imagine that the world will continue to turn without us one day! Yet we are frequently confronted by evidence of the fragility of life.  In some parts of the world, surviving each day is questionable, with tomorrow never a guarantee.

I have attended several funerals where the person at the center of the ceremony was not known to me, in other cases I may have known them socially, but not well.  And the joy of such occasions is when the personality of the person in the coffin is so joyous, so impactful that by the end of the ceremony you feel as if you know them. 

Many years ago I attended the funeral of a coworker, one I knew by name and face, but had never actually worked with her.  I had heard stories of her, and some of them were not so flattering.  She would volunteer for extra shifts when the hospital was short-staffed.  A Supervisor’s dream! But then, so went the stories, she was just as likely to take a looong break during her second shift, and leave the work to others.  She had an aversion to touching dead bodies, so if a patient ‘coded’ during the night, she would not be the one doing chest compressions. 

It wasn’t until her funeral that I learned that this lady was the anchor of her family.  It was through her overtime shifts that she was able to send her siblings to college.  She was also a go-getter.  She had always wanted to own a candy-apple red corvette, and one day left the showroom with her dream car, even though it was a stick-shift (manual gear) and she had never learned to drive one! She had the salesman take her out and teach her, and then she drove home! I imagine she stalled that car a good few times!

Seeing her through the eyes of those who knew her, of those who saw her from many different points of view, helped me to realize that you should never judge someone.  The piece you see of them is only one slice, and there may be many other versions.  This week I attended the funeral of a young man I did not know, but thanks to the tributes, I had a good introduction to the person he was, and the impact he had made on many lives.  He was a teacher, and it appears his ripples will continue to spread outward as those he touched, touch others.

For those who are bereaved, the comfort of a funeral comes in the rituals, the familiarity of hymns and texts.  There is something so hopeful about the verse: ‘But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope…’ Since the King James Version is the one I best recall from my childhood, I can always hear my father’s voice when I hear those words. 

Over the past fifty years, since leaving home, I have explored many other stories regarding life, the afterlife, the concept of reincarnation, of evolving souls, and many concepts not taught in the Bible.  This has given me a less structured vision of heaven, more of a belief that it is how you live your life that matters, rather than what you believe.  For the religious, there is the need to adhere to both – how you live, and what you believe in.

Unfortunately we are finding ourselves at a time where there are those who declare themselves to be Christians, yet seem to follow a very unchristian path, following a man who (it would seem) possesses not one ounce of Christian humility, and definitely does not know how to love others,  But just as declaring myself the fastest runner in the world does not make my an Olympian, it is not enough to tell people what you are.  We are known by our actions, not by our words. 

In a world when we are witnessing the morally indefensible being perpetrated on a people who have been living in subhuman conditions for years (can you imagine living your whole life in a ‘refugee camp’?), it is difficult to believe that those in charge have any religion, any belief in a moral code, or a God who will hold them accountable.  It is hard to see how this will end, but over ten thousand civilians have died in the Ukraine war so far, and in an even shorter time, over twenty thousand have died in Gaza.  For those families, no ceremony can give closure.  Rushed funerals (or perhaps no funeral) cannot bring those gentle reminders of a life well lived. 

This Friday morning in a busy month of remembering (or in many cases, learning) the impact of African Americans on the history of the United States, it is good to ponder on the value of a human life.  How can one life be worth more than another?  As one person, whose voice appears to be louder in death than in his short life, would say ‘half the story has never been told’.  It is up to us to help to keep the names and stories of those who have passed alive, by sharing and repeating the work they have done, thereby keeping those ripples spreading.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family! And please keep sharing your stories!

One Love!

Namaste.