Yesterday I attended my great uncle’s funeral. As we walked into the funeral home, my mother was greeted by a number of relatives whom she had not seen since childhood. These nearly forgotten cousins quickly regrouped, telling stories about their uncle, reminiscing about a childhood on his farm, helping pluck eggs from temperamental hens and learning the hard way that my uncle was adept at using a cow’s utters as a squirt gun.
It was beautiful to remember my uncle this way, fun-loving, a consummate practical joker, a simple man who loved family and the earth. This seemed like a fitting tribute.
As we shuffled into the funeral home for the service, an uncomfortable-looking man emerged from the camouflage of a wall lined with shyer relatives. He took the podium and began to eulogize. This man, this minister, read my uncle’s obituary aloud (seemingly for the first time), stumbled through unfamiliar names and latched onto details that seemed to encapsulate all the insignificant parts of my uncle’s life. Yes, he played to accordion—but that was fifty years ago, he did not particularly enjoy it, and few in attendance had memory of that. Yes, he was a faithful man, who loved to sing in the choir, but he was a believer in a simpler kind of religion—he was not, as the minister asserted, one who had formally accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savoir. He was a believer, not a convert.
As the minister waxed on, inserting his own interpretation of my uncle’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder where my uncle had gone in all of this. There was a casket, there was his eerily sleeping body—he looked asleep, not absent—but where was he in these stories? Where was the kind man who dressed up as Santa Claus, created life from seeds, ran a farm, raised a family, and made life extraordinary by dwelling in its simple beauty?
Finally, the minister asked the congregation to offer their own memories of my uncle. People stood, one at a time, and gave memories of the living man, but each closed by reaffirming that he was in a better place, that now he was in heaven, that he had gone on a journey, that he was with the angels, with his family, that he was looking down. Slowly, collectively, each stood to convince themselves and one another that his soul was fine, though his broken, amputated body lie visible to all.
When the family memorial ended, the minister began again, saying that now my uncle was walking, running, dancing, singing in heaven. He was singing more beautifully than any of us had ever heard him sing, more beautifully than we could imagine. The idea made me feel better.
But was it true?
After the funeral, my mother and I talked about the minister, how he seemed to have been missing some salient facts about who our uncle really was. The man he summarized did not measure up to the man we knew. My mother commented sadly, that surely the preacher had never heard our uncle sing. If he had, he never would have said that it was possible for him to sing more beautifully, even in heaven.
I recognize that in the face of death, we all need comfort. The loss of a loved person is not as harsh, as bitter if we can believe that the person is not really lost—just missing, temporarily, and better off somewhere else. But my wishing for this, our collective hoping for this, does not make it so.
The power of my will is such that I can hardly control the activities of my own life. How could I conceivably concoct another reality through the sheer force of my hopeful assertions? Damn, I’d love a peaceful world—my desperate hope for that has not made it a reality.
My hope for life does not raise the dead.
And so I am left feeling emptier. Not only is my uncle gone, not only am I the sort who intellectualizes grief, not only am I incapable of understanding faith, now also, I feel the utter helplessness of our situation.
We can have hopes, but what are they but comfortable fabrications? Hopes are not truth, no matter how lovely they might be.
It was beautiful to remember my uncle this way, fun-loving, a consummate practical joker, a simple man who loved family and the earth. This seemed like a fitting tribute.
As we shuffled into the funeral home for the service, an uncomfortable-looking man emerged from the camouflage of a wall lined with shyer relatives. He took the podium and began to eulogize. This man, this minister, read my uncle’s obituary aloud (seemingly for the first time), stumbled through unfamiliar names and latched onto details that seemed to encapsulate all the insignificant parts of my uncle’s life. Yes, he played to accordion—but that was fifty years ago, he did not particularly enjoy it, and few in attendance had memory of that. Yes, he was a faithful man, who loved to sing in the choir, but he was a believer in a simpler kind of religion—he was not, as the minister asserted, one who had formally accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savoir. He was a believer, not a convert.
As the minister waxed on, inserting his own interpretation of my uncle’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder where my uncle had gone in all of this. There was a casket, there was his eerily sleeping body—he looked asleep, not absent—but where was he in these stories? Where was the kind man who dressed up as Santa Claus, created life from seeds, ran a farm, raised a family, and made life extraordinary by dwelling in its simple beauty?
Finally, the minister asked the congregation to offer their own memories of my uncle. People stood, one at a time, and gave memories of the living man, but each closed by reaffirming that he was in a better place, that now he was in heaven, that he had gone on a journey, that he was with the angels, with his family, that he was looking down. Slowly, collectively, each stood to convince themselves and one another that his soul was fine, though his broken, amputated body lie visible to all.
When the family memorial ended, the minister began again, saying that now my uncle was walking, running, dancing, singing in heaven. He was singing more beautifully than any of us had ever heard him sing, more beautifully than we could imagine. The idea made me feel better.
But was it true?
After the funeral, my mother and I talked about the minister, how he seemed to have been missing some salient facts about who our uncle really was. The man he summarized did not measure up to the man we knew. My mother commented sadly, that surely the preacher had never heard our uncle sing. If he had, he never would have said that it was possible for him to sing more beautifully, even in heaven.
I recognize that in the face of death, we all need comfort. The loss of a loved person is not as harsh, as bitter if we can believe that the person is not really lost—just missing, temporarily, and better off somewhere else. But my wishing for this, our collective hoping for this, does not make it so.
The power of my will is such that I can hardly control the activities of my own life. How could I conceivably concoct another reality through the sheer force of my hopeful assertions? Damn, I’d love a peaceful world—my desperate hope for that has not made it a reality.
My hope for life does not raise the dead.
And so I am left feeling emptier. Not only is my uncle gone, not only am I the sort who intellectualizes grief, not only am I incapable of understanding faith, now also, I feel the utter helplessness of our situation.
We can have hopes, but what are they but comfortable fabrications? Hopes are not truth, no matter how lovely they might be.
