Funeral The Continuing Story

fu·ner·al

/ˈfyo͞on(ə)rəl/

the ceremonies honoring a dead person, typically involving burial or cremation.

In the last fourteen months, my family and extended family have lost six family members ranging from grandmothers to uncles. All too natural causes and nothing more. In a world where global pandemics are at the forefront of the human mind, it’s hard to grasp that we all still leave this world another way. 

In July, I attended my wife’s grandmother’s funeral. She died a year after my grandmother died, almost to the day. It was here, listening to the stories about her, I realized that one never truly dies or forgotten. Only when the stories stop being told then does that individual fade into death. 

At our local cemetery, there are headstones made from sandstone, all etchings to show whose burial plot it is has been eroded. (Because of the watering of the grounds for that green living look cemeteries crave.) Are the stories being told of this individual or has the family forgotten them? 

The reason I am sharing this is, how often do we think that once we bury an individual in the ground, that it is the end? We mourn and cry, feeling lost and empty. Hoping it’s all a bad dream. Then we come to and get on with living. Do we share our family stories or keep it to ourselves? Only retelling when it comes slipping through the cracks of memory. 

I never knew much about my grandmother. I had heard some stories growing up, but learned a lot about the woman she was at her service. Even though some live a full life, some never get that chance. Words and statements like miscarriage, stillborn, gone too soon, are just a few expressions to those that never get a chance. 

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the miscarriage my wife and I had. I look at my children and often wonder what that little spirit would have been like and how they would have fit into the dynamic of our family. 

Then I take a deep breath and think back on why funerals would freak me out, that position of being lost and not existing. Scares the hell out of me. Then, attending that funeral in July, I learned funerals are not the end. The stories, the connections, keep individuals alive. It’s no wonder that many cultures have celebrations to remember and honor the dead. They are keeping them alive for their families. 

Family history and learning to not be afraid of death have made me understand funerals are the continuing story. 

We should not be afraid to die. We should impart stories to be retold.