At Rest

Funer­als are for the liv­ing — not the dead. They are for those gath­ered around the grave. It is a time to reflect on the deceased, but it is mostly for those that are recon­nect­ing around the event. Reunion is more the theme than depar­ture. We will each take our turn being the rea­son peo­ple gather. They will talk about us a lit­tle, but for the most part they will laugh and greet peo­ple they have not seen for years. That makes for a pretty strange para­dox. Your sad demise brings peo­ple together in joy.

A good funeral brings an end to var­i­ous chap­ters in the lives of the indi­vid­u­als that are at the grave­side. There is a lot of value in that. Peo­ple breathe a sigh of relief when the final prayer is said. They return to vis­it­ing and then depart grace­fully until all that is left is the cas­ket and the ceme­tery work­ers. That makes for an inter­est­ing mov­ing sym­bol. Life goes on. Do not ever for­get that. It does not revolve around any of us. That one fact alone stim­u­lates a healthy humil­ity. We may be the cen­ter of our lives, but we are not the cen­ter of life itself.

What fol­lows us tem­porar­ily are mem­o­ries. After a while, the flow­ers fade, the grass grows over the fresh dirt, and life — with all of its joys and heartaches — goes on. A lot of things are dropped — other than the pine box into six feet of earth. There we leave our dis­ap­point­ments and judg­ments. We turn our atten­tion to the tasks that beckon us, and we go back to our lives. The funeral events we attend through­out our lives are there for our per­spec­tive. Pol­i­tics, the econ­omy, the celebri­ties of the day are sel­dom brought up. They may be buried sooner than the next per­son to die in your fam­ily or among your cir­cle of friends. Noth­ing beats look­ing at yesterday’s news­pa­per to real­ize the shal­low grave of “cur­rent events.”

“They rest from their labors…” as the scrip­ture says and as the requiem masses chant. This echoes in my mind on a daily basis. I once saw a photo of a set of steps lead­ing into the library of a great writer. Welded on each metal step in sequence are the words: “You Will Have Plenty Of Time To Rest When You Are Six Feet Under.” That is one of my mot­tos of life. Time frit­tered away can­not be redeemed. Live now. All you have is the moment. Make it count!