A Funeral
Last week I went to a funeral for the father of an old grad school friend; he was the same age as my parents. As the first funeral I've attended since my father's second cousin killed himself 15 years ago, I didn't quite know what to say to comfort my friend. So mostly I listened - to him, to the pastor, to the eulogy, trying to get a sense of who this man was and why he had died at the age of 58.
Death is uncomfortable to me. I realize the appalling selfishness of that sentiment, yet as a mortal and an atheist, it is an unavoidable anxiety. Trying to make sense of death is easy: life is a tremendously fragile entity, and for the most part, we humans go through it blissfully unaware of how precariously we tread at its edge. But no matter how long we manage to put it off, it will happen to all of us, and when I stop and quietly consider that inevitability, I am filled with a sense of dreadful awe. But at least it makes sense.
Trying to comfort someone who has experienced this loss is a more difficult task, though easier for some than others. The services were held at eleven in the morning, on a Saturday in early spring. I sat listening alternately to the birds outside, expertly staking claims in the trees, and the fumbling old pastor on the altar assuring us that, even as the coffin stood ready to be wheeled out for burial, this was not The End. My friend and I were trained by the same professors, in the same field. We have seen the same patterns of the natural world unfold in mathematics and logic. For neither of us is the enduring myth of heaven steadfast. And I struggled to understand his grief, and for words that were meaningful but not deception. This was The End for him. And, luck granting that I should outlive my parents, when it happens to them, it will be The End for me. But that has to be okay somehow.
We sang beautiful hymns. It is worth pausing here to mention that, no matter how deeply entrenched I become in my atheism, I can never shake the feeling of a soulful hymn. I am still deeply moved at Easter when the songs of resurrection and renewal fill the eaves of my father's cathedral. I cry at Christmas, the gentle carols of maternal love and eternal hope playing quietly on my mother's turntable. They touch pieces of my heart that will never be free of this wishful myth.
But it wasn't the songs echoing in the small chapel that gave me peace. They touch me and they strike memories long buried, but they hold no meaning for me now. I came to terms with the dead man and the answerless questions because of a crying baby in the back pew. We are all here for such a short time. Our children and their children will remember our names, but after that, we are forgotten. All we can hope to do is improve their lives, in some way, such that they are better off for our being here. This is immortality, and the only means to it. So this is how I tried to reassure my friend. I knew that his life and even my life through him, had been changed positively because of the man his father had been, and that in that way he would live on. Life moves ever forward despite our absence, but at least we have had the chance to contribute a note to its intricate symphony.
Death is uncomfortable to me. I realize the appalling selfishness of that sentiment, yet as a mortal and an atheist, it is an unavoidable anxiety. Trying to make sense of death is easy: life is a tremendously fragile entity, and for the most part, we humans go through it blissfully unaware of how precariously we tread at its edge. But no matter how long we manage to put it off, it will happen to all of us, and when I stop and quietly consider that inevitability, I am filled with a sense of dreadful awe. But at least it makes sense.
Trying to comfort someone who has experienced this loss is a more difficult task, though easier for some than others. The services were held at eleven in the morning, on a Saturday in early spring. I sat listening alternately to the birds outside, expertly staking claims in the trees, and the fumbling old pastor on the altar assuring us that, even as the coffin stood ready to be wheeled out for burial, this was not The End. My friend and I were trained by the same professors, in the same field. We have seen the same patterns of the natural world unfold in mathematics and logic. For neither of us is the enduring myth of heaven steadfast. And I struggled to understand his grief, and for words that were meaningful but not deception. This was The End for him. And, luck granting that I should outlive my parents, when it happens to them, it will be The End for me. But that has to be okay somehow.
We sang beautiful hymns. It is worth pausing here to mention that, no matter how deeply entrenched I become in my atheism, I can never shake the feeling of a soulful hymn. I am still deeply moved at Easter when the songs of resurrection and renewal fill the eaves of my father's cathedral. I cry at Christmas, the gentle carols of maternal love and eternal hope playing quietly on my mother's turntable. They touch pieces of my heart that will never be free of this wishful myth.
But it wasn't the songs echoing in the small chapel that gave me peace. They touch me and they strike memories long buried, but they hold no meaning for me now. I came to terms with the dead man and the answerless questions because of a crying baby in the back pew. We are all here for such a short time. Our children and their children will remember our names, but after that, we are forgotten. All we can hope to do is improve their lives, in some way, such that they are better off for our being here. This is immortality, and the only means to it. So this is how I tried to reassure my friend. I knew that his life and even my life through him, had been changed positively because of the man his father had been, and that in that way he would live on. Life moves ever forward despite our absence, but at least we have had the chance to contribute a note to its intricate symphony.
posted by ellie at 10:14
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