The Funeral I’m Dreading — and Why I Have to Go Anyway
Grief, Scars, and the Courage to Walk Back Into the Church
There are good funerals and there are not so good funerals.
Let me explain the difference.
A good funeral is a one where nobody is saying “Gosh, he or she was taken too soon.” My Grandmother’s funeral was a “good” funeral. She lived to the ripe old age of 101. So, although it was still very sad to say goodbye, no one at that funeral was asking “Why?” At her service, we shared stories about her stubborn streak, her laugh that could fill a room, and her famous vegetable patch that she somehow maintained well into her nineties.
Not long before she passed, in a moment of pure candor, she quipped, “When I die, they are going to put me on top of Poppy. I haven’t been on top of Poppy for such a long time. I’m really looking forward to it.” She delivered the line with a glint in her eye and the same cheeky grin that had endeared her to us our entire lives. Even Death himself seemed to break into a momentary smile at my 101-year-old grandmother’s brazen sex joke. But only for a moment, because then he dutifully took her hand and led her away.
And we laughed as we cried.
