Last Thursday was a rough one. I went to my first funeral since Ruth’s Celebration of Life. One of our teaching friends, Irv, lost his wife, Elaine, the prior week. Irv was on Plainwell Junior High’s staff when Ruth and I started teaching in the fall of 1969. Elaine and Ruth had been students in high school together. She was a year older than Ruth. The last time I saw Irv and Elaine was at Ruth’s celebration.
In the years just prior to my father’s death, my parents started going to funerals on a regular basis. You reach a certain age that death comes knocking more frequently. Attending funerals was a part of their social life. That’s where I’m headed.
Funerals are a type of reunion. You see people you haven’t seen in years to grieve together. It’s a blessing and a curse. You’re happy to renew friendships but mourn the friend you lost.
I’ve never liked attending them. I guess no one does. My objection is the impersonal tributes people pay. They seem too formal to me. You live a casual life and once you’re gone people decide to act differently.
Irv spoke at the funeral. He’d written a love story about Elaine and their life together and he read it to us. She was fifteen and he was sixteen when they met at a New Years Eve party. He made sure he was close at hand when the clock struck twelve so they could share their first kiss. He described that first night and the following days, months and years eloquently. He made us laugh a bit on one of the worst days of his life. I could never have spoken as he did without choking on each word.
I stood with Irv, and two other Plainwell friends, in the parking lot after the service. He described what happened on that final day. He’s always been a talker, and this day was no different. We three just listened. At one point he stopped and said, “This is helping. Talking like this is helping.”
That’s when I leaned in and hugged him. I said, “Some people will tell you how to behave. You just be you. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel or when you should feel it. Each of us gets through this differently.” I struggled with my words but got them out.
Grief is a bitch. You never know when she’s going to rear her ugly head. She’s always around. She may step back into the shadows, but she doesn’t go away.
You have to be patient with her. Over time you learn to live with her and accept the unacceptable.