Memory
So, then. The minister....and Rian always wants to say 'The minister's cat...' spoke about his very first funeral, as a vicarage student.
He said he was not supposed to be called to attend, but there was an unremembered emergency, and the senior priest was unavailable. So our Pastor rushed off to the funeral home, where he was met by a frantic mortician.
"I am sorry I cannot stay with you," the mortician said, "but I have another appointment."
The Pastor was a ttch confused, and relieved, as he rather did not want the mortician about. Then he stepped into the funeral home's small chapel and realized why the mortician was so upset.
It was just he, and the body.
No one else showed for the elderly woman's service. Alone, forgotten, outliving loved ones or far away from the home she'd grown up in?
The Pastor said he was depressed for months afterward.
Rian heard this story and felt strangely tangled. On the one hand, the very idea of RIAN's life and death in celebration makes one...makes me....feel faintly ill. I would rather pass quietly and unnoticed.
On the other hand, NO creature wants to be entirely forgotten, or unmourned. To pass from this world with not even a little fanfare, leaving no marks. What a horror. Where is the purpose in that? Where is the hand of Fate?
He said he was not supposed to be called to attend, but there was an unremembered emergency, and the senior priest was unavailable. So our Pastor rushed off to the funeral home, where he was met by a frantic mortician.
"I am sorry I cannot stay with you," the mortician said, "but I have another appointment."
The Pastor was a ttch confused, and relieved, as he rather did not want the mortician about. Then he stepped into the funeral home's small chapel and realized why the mortician was so upset.
It was just he, and the body.
No one else showed for the elderly woman's service. Alone, forgotten, outliving loved ones or far away from the home she'd grown up in?
The Pastor said he was depressed for months afterward.
Rian heard this story and felt strangely tangled. On the one hand, the very idea of RIAN's life and death in celebration makes one...makes me....feel faintly ill. I would rather pass quietly and unnoticed.
On the other hand, NO creature wants to be entirely forgotten, or unmourned. To pass from this world with not even a little fanfare, leaving no marks. What a horror. Where is the purpose in that? Where is the hand of Fate?
posted by La Tulipe | 1:42 PM
5 Comments:
Very interesting when I searching blogs, and see your site.
Roy
Nobody wants to be forgotten. Even though I would have no way of knowing, I'd like to think that there would be lots of people at my funeral. I suppose it's just a way of reassuring yourself that people care, in a rather morbid way.
Poor lady. It seems like such a silly thing, but for nobody to attend... yes, depressing.
I must be odd, but that's how I want my funeral: a mortified mortician and a horrified priest. Job well done.
In the cemetery where I walk my dog, there are a few plots that have a large family headstone and then individual markers that are flat in the ground. By looking at different ones and the dates they were placed, it appears that in 40 years these stones are going to be completely covered with grasses. I started stopping to rip out patches of sod as I walk by, but can't help but think how in 40 years they're going to be covered anyway. It just seems wrong that someday they will be hidden.
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