Putting the "Fun" Back In "Funeral"

In the larger scheme, it's probably a safe bet to place a hundred bucks on the idea that if you interviewed a group of people of any size, there would be exactly zero people in that group who absolutely loved attending funerals.  Honestly, I don't even like writing about them.  I certainly wouldn't blame you for not wanting to read about them.  But I need to illustrate an idea I've been thinking about, so to that end, I hope you'll first grant me a few paragraphs about funerals, so that I can add a few more later on about better things.

Grief, loneliness...the reminder of our own mortality:  None are pleasant to experience.  But they are by-products inextricably intertwined with losing someone we love.

Still, we go to funerals.  We go, of course, to honor the lives of the one who has passed away.  We also go, it is said, not for the deceased, but for the living.  It is indeed one of the most heartrending aspects of funerals, to see people drop what they are doing, come together in friendship and put aside all other worldly trifles for a time, in order to offer love and respect, encouragement and hope, to those who at this specific moment so dearly need it.  There is untold value in that.  To show others that though they may be feeling alone, they are absolutely not alone, is one of the greatest acts of kindness.

But the part of all of this I've always taken for granted, that I've only recently begun to think about, is why.  The reasons I've given above are not enough to explain exactly why the "funeral" is even a ceremony at all.  Pondering exactly why they are something so ingrained - so familiar - to all of us, that we could pretty much recite from memory precisely what will take place, the order in which it will happen, and approximately how long it will last...it actually seems a bit bizarre, doesn't it?   It seems almost dark; the idea that always - even when it's for someone we sort of knew -  going to the funeral is the understood "right" thing to do...often when we hadn't seen - nor maybe even planned to see - that person for a great length of time.

Funerals certainly aren't something new.  They've been around for thousands of years.  Back to when kings were buried behind intricately-decorated gold death masks in giant sarcophagi - magnificently-carved monuments of stone - in the hopes they would endure for centuries.  Great and lavish funerals were held so that the living might secure favor from the dead king, who now and forevermore had ascended to be a god.

But we're fairly certain of the reality:  That upon death, those kings, regardless of the scale or the pageantry or the grandeur of their funerals, shared something in common with all other people who have died since:  They weren't aware of the proceedings.  Only we, the survivors, were.  Since the days are now mostly gone when people believed that one's entrance to the afterlife depended specifically and solely on how one was interred, it occurs to me that the reason we still have funerals is maybe both simpler and more complex than we think:  We don't know what else to do.  

We don't know how to bring closure to an entire life's worth of meaning.  We don't know how to cling to the memories, and to ensure it is mainly the good memories that remain.  But also, I believe they exist to alleviate some feelings of guilt held by the living.  There is a hope - that in those few moments of finality, there is still one last opportunity to say the things we didn't say earlier - which gives us a bit of peace.

I am not suggesting funerals are unnecessary.  Far from it.  I, like most everyone else, have watched as more than one person I loved deeply was lowered into the ground.   And to even suggest the funerals of those people we've loved weren't an opportunity for us to collect our thoughts, and for others to love those grieving, would be nonsense.  Lunacy, even.   

But the thing which has always haunted me a bit, are the stories told at funerals.  For sure, it is a rare gift to hear about people who are now gone.  To hear how they lived and how they cared and loved and brought laughter and faced hardships and how they will be missed.  How they built and failed and recovered and built again.  The entire study of history is built upon chronicling such things.  I have learned much of my own family from stories told at funerals, and can only pray that I will live a life decent enough for someone to tell a story at my own someday.

But there are thoughts - questions, really - that linger for me.   Did the subject of the stories - the one in the casket - know I thought so highly of them last week -  before they passed on?  Were they aware they had created a life so affecting,  sometimes in countless ways, that I'll never forget them?  That their lives changed the course of my life?  Did they know how much they were loved?  Did they believe their years mattered?  That what they said was taken to heart?  That they left an indelible trail through the weeds that I have followed, my footsteps easy because of their strain?  That what they taught was learned, appreciated, and will be passed down by me, so that those same things can be learned and appreciated long after even I am gone?

For me, the answer is normally:  I don't know.  Maybe.  But I always could've done infinitely more to let them know.  Not to assuage my later feelings of guilt.  But to have brought us both more joy while we're alive.  We're all human.  There will always be some history of cross words.  Of mistakes.  Of things never said, and others that never should've been said.  I don't mean to say that we should have regrets.  Our lives are paintings, not single moments in time.  They are all full of both beauty and error.  But we can know they ultimately convey our heart's intent, and that intent was unquestionably understood by those now gone.

But all this talk of funerals is actually to suggest the real question.  The one which has absolutely nothing to do with funerals.  One which I can't begin to say I've answered in the only way that matters:  How I've lived my life to date.

And this is it:  Is there a reason we shouldn't be celebrating lives now, when we can ALL enjoy the celebration?   

I'm talking about something beyond taking the time to call your sister (although you should do that), or hugging those closest to you every day (you should do that, too).  I'm talking about more ridiculous things.  Over-the-top kind of stuff.  The kind of behavior rarely seen by the rule-followers and the gentlemen.  

To begin, we should be saying the most meaningful things to people that we can think of, and then making that a habit.  Intently saying, and saying constantly, the most powerful words we can find.  Is there any life unworthy of ridiculous celebration?   Is there harm in extravagant expression?  Can we love too much?  Can we be too kind?

We can tell our friends the ways they've influenced us, just as effortlessly as we now talk about the Bears/Steelers game.  Tell our families how much joy they bring us, just as fluidly as we now talk about our days at work.  Tell the people who have affected us how we've admired them - and why - just as consistently as we now talk about the weather.

I'm talking about throwing parties for people specifically because it isn't their birthday.  Giving gifts to people specifically because it isn't a holiday.  Writing letters to people specifically because we don't have their addresses.  Breathing life with our words into someone, specifically because they haven't asked for it.

And all the while, realizing that there is no need to wait for a funeral.  Every single day it is up to us whether to have a festival or a ceremony or some over-the-top extravagance to celebrate a life.   Only nobody needs to have died, nobody needs to be sad, and it can occur much more often than once in a lifetime.  Large gatherings or quiet moments, out loud or silently on paper, we can simply tell people things we don't tell them enough.  And then tell them much more than that.  We can overwhelm them with gratitude and love.  I'm not talking about flattery.  That's cheap and pointless.  Instead, we can tell them about how incredible it is, that they, *insert name here*,  were even born.  And how even more fantastic it is, that we're alive at the same time.   And how it's amazing combined with incredible on top of ridiculously-cool that we get to know them as friend or sister or brother or parent.   

Can you imagine?  Imagine if this were commonplace?  If we dedicated ourselves not to mastering small talk, but to eliminating it?  Replacing small words with large thoughts.  Weak platitudes with words of gravity.  Can you imagine how the world around us would change, if the words that came from our mouths or through our pens the vast majority of the time, were those that the listener loved hearing, almost as much as the speaker enjoyed saying?

There would be very little time for worrying.  For fighting amongst ourselves.  For gossip or self-pity or jealousy.  Or any other of the countless things on which we carelessly waste our days.

But selfishness would still creep in a bit.  The kind of selfishness that would make us dream about how to do more of it.  To feel more of the profound joy which only comes from giving that same joy away to others.   

But really, nobody will even notice a little selfish joy here and there...

because of the insane, maniacal fun we'll be having, while eulogizing the living.