Funeral Home
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My father and I were driving in eastern North Carolina years ago, in a light, warm rain. The wipers were keeping time and Dad had run through his inventory of family-friendly marching cadences (“Your mother was home when you Left. You’re Right!” and that sort of thing). VietNam was in full swing back then and Dad had already done one tour and had rotated into a unit that was probably going back, soon. He had recently been to a lot of funerals. Some military, others not, including family and friends and others.
“Son,” he started. I could always tell that I needed to start paying attention whenever Dad called me “Son”. “In your life you are going to attend a lot of funerals. Some will be for friends of yours. Some will be for people you work with. Some will be family. They’ll all be sad and you’ll be meeting and interacting with people on their very worst days. I don’t know why it is, but nobody teaches people how to act at times like these and—listen to me—people will say the damnedest things at a funeral.
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They just don’t think. Nobody wants to hear bullshit like “God needed another angel” or some shit like that. “Everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t understand at the moment.” “It must have been his time.” “She’s better off, now.” “Feel bad, now, but don’t wallow in it. This will pass.” He went on for a few miles and retold several stupid things he’d overheard people saying to family and other survivors.
Walk up to the person, they’re called the bereaved, and look them straight in the eye. If they’re family or a very close friend, maybe give them a little hug if they’re up for it and say “I’m sorry for your loss”. Leave it at that. Don’t try to explain the secrets of Life standing there with them and don’t suppose you know what they are dealing with. Just say you’re sorry for them and move on.
“I’ve stood next to people who looked the survivors in the eye and said something like “Wow, you must be sooo relieved!” How in Hell is that supposed to help anyone? Can you believe that?”
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Over the years, I actually have attended quite a few funerals. Some were accidental deaths. Some were the end of a disease a person had battled with for a long or a short time. There were lots of people and each was unique in how they got to be the guest of honor at their last party. And I’ve heard many people say many stupid things. I have tried to overlook them. It hasn’t always been easy.
Dad taught me how to act at a funeral. There’s a hierarchy, and a protocol, for nearly everything in the Marines and he passed on as much of that as I guess he thought I could handle, or would do me good, or both. Unless you’re first-tier family, don’t rush for “good seats” in either the service or at the grave. Don’t whistle, sing, hum or even smile in an overly-happy sort of way. Certain people rank higher than others at times like these and this needs to be honored. This last one ruined not only a couple of family funerals but also, for me, a family.
A widow takes precedence over anyone, the way the Queen is the most important piece on the chess board. The kids come next. Then the extended family, the aunts and uncles and grandkids and cousins and then the friends, coworkers and everyone else. There were a bunch of rules like this one that apply to all kinds of situations, not just funerals, but it was within the context of a funeral that he taught me these in that little white Corvair, all those years ago.
My father-in-law died. He’d been struggling for a while so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it’s always a shock, somehow. His widow, my mother-in-law, had some difficulty getting herself together to get to a viewing that was scheduled in the days before the funeral. Kathie and I brought Mom in not quite an hour after the time we’d all agreed to be there. The room was rectangular, with the coffin at the far end and everyone—every member of the family—at the other end like they were avoiding a bad smell or didn’t want to wake Dad up or something. Presumably they had all had nearly an hour to visit the body and say whatever they needed to, or pray, or remember a time when….
Back then, we had a lot of kids in the family under the age of five to seven and most of them were running around between the pews and chasing one another and laughing while their grief-stricken parents held station near the door and let it all happen. My dad the Marine would have said they were all “playing grab-ass” and he would have been seriously upset to see it.
We got Mom in and settled and she asked me to take her up to see the man she’d lived with for dozens of years, kept a home for and raised a family with, shared intimacies nobody will ever understand, fears and joys and all of the rest of it. I walked her up and I stepped back and took at seat in the front row in case she needed me. I wanted her to have some privacy with the man she had loved so much and for so long—after all of those years, she had earned that.
And that’s the moment one of the grandkids decided to go back up front and hang out with Grandma. I saw him coming up the aisle and said, “Let’s let Grandma have a few quiet moments with Grandpa before we go up to see him, okay?” The little guy sat beside me and cried a little, but I thought he did understand. I never told him he could not go up to say goodbye to Grandpa, only that we should wait until Grandma had had her time. No other adult child or grandchild came up at that point and Mom got to say her peace and turned to head back to the family. I really thought that was it.
The next day, the mother of the kid Lost Her Shit. She thought that even though Mom and Dad had spent forty-some years together, there was no reason for anyone to expect that Mom might want to say a few quiet goodbyes to the man that had filled her days and her heart. There was certainly no reason to inconvenience a little boy who couldn’t be bothered for nearly an hour, by making him wait for three or five minutes so Grandma could spend some time alone with him.
What followed was a whole cascade of BS. “God must have noticed what a great man he was.” and all kinds of crap like that. Dashing from the limo to the seats at graveside, so I wouldn’t take one (as if I would somehow feel entitled! Five seats. Mom and her four daughters. Do the math, people!) And so every memory I have of his funeral, and of hers some months later, is ruined now—and so is my relationship with that whole end of the family.
Come on, folks! Everyone’s a little raw at times like these, and if you say or do the wrong thing it can stay with someone for years and years—maybe forever. Be nice, for crying out loud.
Just be nice.
