I have a certain feeling that washes over me every time I attend a funeral. In particular, I am thinking about funerals for friends, acquaintances and those attended through obligation and not the funerals so personal that they overwhelm me with grief.
That feeling I am talking about which washes over is hard to describe but I will try to share it with you (of course, otherwise this article would stop here).
Collective grief, compassion for the family, celebration and sadness for a life passed, guilt for all of my inadequacies, why couldn’t have I tried harder or done better, my father and all my friends and family passed, am I really going to shed a tear (I hardly know this person!), what are they going to say at my funeral, what worthwhile thing could they say, etc., etc. – you get the picture.
Funerals have a habit of bringing me back to my most basic of instincts. I/we are here to give, share, help and leave not a footprint but the world a better place. Hatred has no place or time at my funerals.
However every funeral I attend leaves me with the same feeling as I depart. Life is finite. Live every day. There really isn’t a moment to waste.
This feeling sometimes lasts only a day but, there is always another funeral. After all, the three certainties in life are, as they say; birth, death and levies!!
Lee
Leave a Reply