There is nothing like a funeral to contrast the aliveness I feel in my life. In supporting my friend, JulieAnn, yesterday by attending her mother’s funeral, I realized that funerals are just not my thing. More clearly… church funerals. Having been raised in the same religion she was raised in – and us both having left the religion – I had never known how laborious a religious funeral could be, until yesterday even though her brothers were all very gracious in their eulogies and went sparingly into indoctrination. The one thing I have never understood – and understand it even less now – is that Mormon funerals turn into a time to preach at the pulpit. I have never understood how celebrating one human’s life is an opportunity to read scriptures and teach a Gospel Doctrine lesson.
I was appreciating her youngest brother’s ability to lovingly open the services with a talk, not of all things Church related, but rather, of his love for his mother and the amazing woman that she was. His talk was gentle and absent of the overwhelming, over-pervasive talk of religion that I have heard in so many other church funerals. And he ended his moment at the pulpit with “Thank you,” instead of “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” I am imagining that this brother is the brother who is non-religious. The other brothers, however, touched upon the Church teachings, gaining in intensity and length the older they got and I found myself wondering, “Why? Why does this need to be a lesson?”
I did not know JulieAnn’s mother. I had never even met her. However, I felt that I knew little pieces of her, the tender memories and the laughter that she brought into everyone’s world. I found myself crying silent tears when the grandchildren got up to sing. They opened with one of the very songs we sang at my Grandma’s funeral who happened to die on April 3, 2003, exactly five years to the day of JulieAnn’s mother’s death. For a moment, it was my Grandma in the casket and I was sad all over again, missing her.
Funerals are a strange thing. Especially Mormon funerals. I get that it is supposed to help the living to say goodbye. Couldn’t it be more uplifting, though? Couldn’t it be a celebration of who the deceased was? Couldn’t it be a time of only celebrating them, rather than some sort of religious agenda?
I think, when it is my time to go, I am going to invite the living to revel in my life. I am going to have there be drums and dancing. I am going to invite them to move and laugh and cry. Because, I believe, that is what I will be doing on the other side.
