Death
2000 ~Feb 3rd Jared, my friend and co-worker, takes his own life in his 20’s.
2001 ~Jan 4th Lili, my mother’s cousin, dies of leukemia in her late 40s
2002 Jan 7th Herbert, my father’s cousin, dies of leukemia in his 50s
2002 Jan 8th Donald, my grandfather, dies of lymphoma and prostate cancer at 88.
I’m getting kind of tired of it.
For obvious reasons in what has grown into an annual ritual I’ve been thinking of death and the rituals that surround it. I heard a story from my great grandfathers funeral that I thought was extremely powerful. After retirement my great grandfather became a professional magician, at his funeral 8 magicians in full tuxedo attire took his wand broke it and placed it in his coffin. This happened before I was born but it strikes me as a powerful image.
This past week were my first funerals on my father’s side of the family.
My mother’s side is Catholic and that is the Funeral I am familiar with. There is the wake, where the body is viewed this is where sympathies are expressed to the family. There is usually a photo display (exhibit?) to the deceased life. It is very somber and serious. This is where the eulogy takes place. This is usually religion free save for a cross over the coffin and often the language of condolences is religious in nature.
The next day the body is brought to the church where full mass takes place communion, prayers, etc. The priest will say a few words about the deceased but I have to wonder about whether they mean anything. The body is supposed to be conveyed to the grave but the last funeral on this side of the family, in violation of Catholic doctrine, was a cremation and so the body was loaded in the hearse and off it went. A bad final image, it lacked strength and finality.
Then of course everyone goes to someones house where food is served and people hang out.
Funeral’s on my father’s side have a strange sterility. There Congregationalist or something like that. The body is never seen and there is no wake.
The funeral starts in the church where the priest talks and there is singing of hymns and prayers. Herbert’s funeral was un-traditional in that family and friends got up and spoke at the funeral, this didn’t happen at my grandfathers otherwise the priest talks for about a minute about the deceased in among the singing and prayers. My grandfather didn’t have anything like a personal eulogy by someone who knew him. I think the eulogy is a powerful feature of the ceremony. It allows you to grab the essence of someone and remember who they really were not just to you but to other people. I think my grandfather should have had one.
The normal thing to happen is to go to one of the attached church buildings afterwords where there is tea, coffee cookies, etc. There is a reception line for the immediate family then the group goes to someones house for more substantial eating and cocktails. My grandmother for reasons that I don’t understand didn’t want the coffee/tea event and skipped it in favor of going directly to her house for a reception.
For grandpa the next morning the immediate family went to the graveyard where his cremated remains where interred. When we got there the remains where already in the ground, the priest said a few stock words and we were done.
I don’t know if this sort of funeral brings closure or comfort to the believers, but I’m pretty certain it had no such effect on me. The thing is I don’t even know if my grandfather believed in god. He certainly wasn’t a regular attendant at church, the sense that my father conveyed to me is that he probably didn’t. As my father put it in regards to the comment “Donald would have liked [the funeral].” “Except for all the singing and praying.”
I took the time I was supposed to be singing and praying and saying amen to try to remember as much about my grandfather as I could, to grab the sense of him and how he affected me and never forget that part of me that is actually him. Those memes that are his.
This post is actually an introduction. Tomorrow I’ll post my plans for my own death ritual given this years perspective. Though I’d like others perspective on what they’d want their own rituals to be.
–Zafkiel
PS: If you want to tell me the ceremony doesn’t matter because I wont exist anymore please check http://fireboards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=13817215 for my response.