Fun Roll Pet Peeves

My nephew mispronounced the word 'funeral' as 'fun roll'. Not quite...at all.

Let me begin by relating a religious and personal anecdote that epitomizes the type of thing that I would like to hear, first-hand from family, at a funeral. My dad related that a day or two before her death, Granny was lying in bed with her arms held in front of her, waving them a bit. When Grandaddy asked what she was doing, she told him that she was "flying with the angels". This is beautiful evidence that Granny was ready for death and unafraid.

I will also say that I have renewed appreciation for the memorial services that I have attended at the Unitarian Universalist Church. These events have been so extremely thoughtful and nostalgic. Beloved friends and family have shared anecdotes and stories about their loved ones--generally encompassing the gamut, including their flaws, but mostly focusing on their attributes and how they were loved and would be missed.

Experiencing such moving, personalized, and respectful ceremonies at the UU Church accentuates the great disparity for me in the common, more fundamentalist Christian ceremonies of the deep South (the only other ones I have attended and can really comment upon).

In defense of the preachers at Granny's funeral, I will admit that she would probably have wanted the ceremony that they provided. The preachers seem to routinely take any death as an opportunity to praise God for his infinite mercy and to hammer into the bereaved how imperative it is to save their souls now, before death strikes again! A Church of God funeral is really another church service with added emotional fire and focus, fueled by whatever grief and fear is present. Granny's service was hardly personalized at all, beyond the fact that she was an elderly Christian woman who had been married for 70 years to a man who was himself a minister for about a third of those years.

The preachers did know her, but I am fairly certain they mixed up a couple of the few facts about her with which they peppered their sermons. Leukemia? No... but grandaddy did have it for a while. Driving a logging truck? What? Perhaps she pulled it forward once for grandaddy...

While I would have welcomed and been delighted to hear memories of friends and family, instead I felt assaulted, honestly, with the claims that every single one of Granny's attributes were due to her faith in God. I suppose it's tabboo to mention any fault or quirk that actually creates a personality at one of these fundamentalist ceremonies.

The preacher did try, I suppose, a bit, but he honestly didn't know her that well and it was all supposition. He kept calling this event a 'celebration'--"Praise the Lord!"--and when he tried to reminisce, he actually supposed that she or grandaddy must have had a lot of 'sexiness' to stay together for 70 years. "Mmm-mmm, my kind of woman," he said, clearly off in his own reverie of some old-time film star of his own imagination. (Not to say that Granny wasn't sexy, but this was hardly the time or place to be fantasizing about the potentially sexually-gratifying attributes of a dead woman he had hardly known...)

The other preacher claimed that she had had to at times 'choose' between supporting her minister husband and her children, which was preposterous. She loved to visit other church members with grandaddy, and I don't believe she felt she 'neglected' her children one bit. In fact, those 'children' ranged in age from 12 to 16 at the very beginning of his ministry, so they were hardly needy infants. This minister praised her for being grandaddy's 'shadow' of support. Grr. While of course she was supportive, she took pride in her own role and definitely had her own household rules and standards. She was queen of her home, and she was no doormat, despite her constant and admirable desire to uplift her husband to others.

I sort of understand why a fundamentalist Christian would think this is the time to praise God's grace and remind folks of the need to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior". But does God's grace completely obliterate the uniqueness, the specialness of each person's character? It's as though even at one's death, the individual person doesn't even merit the focus. Just another sheep in the shepherd's fold...so anything we say about the sheep is clearly related to the shepherd. No personality or character required or acknowledged. The personality that they did try to apply didn't sound much like Granny...and they clearly didn't know her that well.

Perhaps she would have wanted that, though. Granny and I obviously didn't see eye-to-eye in our world views, and that was her religion of choice. I personally find it upsetting, disrespectful of her, and a hindrance to what should be an experience of sincere love and grieving.

Cranky, aren't I? Yes, I've noticed that I get (even more) hypercritical when I'm grieving. Honestly, I don't think it's a unique trait. Death is a sad time, but it's supposed to be. Perhaps the attempt to divert the attention at funerals to small talk and sermons is simply a prevalent 'inability to deal'. Perhaps that's also why folks never stay to actually bury the person at the gravesite anymore. How very sad to think that all those folks are being put into the ground with absolutely no loved one around. They all leave, I suppose again because of the 'inability to deal'. Actually, I leave too, because we are 'supposed to' nowadays. Maybe we're all just ready to get on with our day and don't want to wait the extra time before dinner...

I get cranky at folks, too, for not bothering to show up at their own grandparents' funerals. It seems so disrespectful, but then I scowl at the disrespectful service and the whole modern idea of not staying for the burial anyhow...so I end up thinking maybe they're right and I'd have been better off mourning and remembering in private...

Note: I want to be cremated. If I'm 96, please do not post unflattering pics of me looking like a withered prune at age 94 on the obituaries. Please find the most flattering pic you can to memorialize me, regardless of my age in it. In fact, I think perhaps I should pick them out myself and keep them on hand for the occasion! If there is a memorial service (currently I'm inclined towards the UU church), please only allow folks who actually knew me well to speak, and leave out any type of sermon please. And...do show up or at least pay proper respects. I am very touchy and may very well haunt you if you don't!