I Went To a Funeral Today

I went to a funeral today. The viewing was Sunday afternoon. I went to that too. There was a long, slow moving line, at the end of which was the family and the open casket. As I got closer, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my friend. She was two years younger than me. I had never seen someone in a casket who was younger than me, so I didn’t look. I didn’t want to remember her like that. But I did want to see her husband and the kids, all dear to me and all grieving an unspeakable loss. So I stood in line and struck up conversations with strangers with whom I shared nothing other than our common love for the departed. After we made it through the line, we gathered around a television screen and watched a slide show of photographs, our beautiful friend’s shining face beaming back at us. Here she was holding a grandchild. There she was holding her middle son as an infant, looking tanned in the warm South African sun. It all seemed so unfair.

I had not been looking forward to the funeral. Whenever I hear them called celebrations, I cringe. It’s like we are trying too hard to deny the fact that we have all suffered a crushing loss. As people of faith, we believe in an afterlife, we believe that we will one day be reunited with those we love. But, to call a funeral a celebration lands rudely on my ears, trite and disrespectful. Putting aside the theological ramifications for a moment, here’s what I know...the world I live in was a better place before my friend left it, and now that she is gone, it has been reduced, there is less love, less empathy, and less selflessness. I will not pretend to celebrate that.

We arrived thirty minutes early, and still had to park somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood. The church was packed to overflowing. The service was simulcast on the internet and watched by hundreds of other people in half a dozen countries around the world. My friend was once a missionary in South Africa. The friends she forged throughout Sub-Saharan Africa were the life long kind. They stopped whatever they were doing at whatever time it was over there to listen to the service.

We sat close to the front, very close to the row where the family was seated. To be seated so close to them was to feel the immediacy of their loss. Part of me wished I were in the back, far away from the pain. We watched them cling to one another. We could barely abide watching our friend’s parents, wondering what they must have been feeling as they prepared to bury their second child.

A man at a keyboard asked us all to stand and sing a song. The words were on the screen at the back of the stage. We all sang the words from memory. It was a familiar song, and these people were church people. We could have sung it with our eyes closed. Many people did, including me.

Then I watched my friend’s husband and her three adult children rise from the front row and make their way to the podium. My heart was in my throat. A hush fell over the assembly. The kids were holding on, being resolute and strong for their very brave dad who read aloud from Proverbs 31. The fact that he made it through felt like a miracle of grace. He then looked down at his bereaved in-laws on the front row and thanked each of them for allowing him the privilege of 35 years as their daughter’s husband. When they made it back to their seat, the atmosphere of the building was drenched with sorrow. Then something amazing happened...

Our dear friend, Gordon Fort rose to give the eulogy. For nearly thirty minutes, his words redeemed the day. He spoke with the perfect mixture of compelling biography, humor and the unique insights that can only be provided by intimate friends. He didn’t try to hide the shock of such a loss, even justifiably lamented that she only lived 58 years on this earth. But at the end, he looked at the family, each of them, and called them by name...Did not Kim love you well? Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Gordon Fort is clutch.

The man at the keyboard again. This time a familiar hymn, the words, powerful and sobering...

When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,

What ever my lot, thou hath taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul...

Pam and I mingled within the mass of people slowly making their way out of the church. We saw people we hadn’t seen in months, some in years. All of us united in grief and overcome with love for such an amazing, selfless woman. We drove home in quiet reflection, praying for the family. We thought of how exhausted they all must be, how thoroughly worn out from all the hugging, the tears and condolences which probably all started sounding the same after a while. Now the family must find their way to Atlanta to lay her to rest. More tears, more embraces.

Tonight, we went to dinner with friends. It felt like the kind of night where we needed to be around friends. We ate a meal together at Brio’s, and talked about our friend. We will miss her. In a few weeks, maybe a couple months, we will recall our friend with nothing but smiles and fondness. For now, its mostly sadness and loss. But thats ok, I think. How could we not?

In the meantime, I will say a quick prayer every time D. Ray comes to my mind. I will keep Paul and Trevor and Emily in my thoughts. And I will hold on to Pam and my four adult children ever tighter, and be grateful for every day that I have them.