A few days ago we attended a funeral for a 30-year-old-young-man. We’ve had a lot of sad news recently but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Nick and his 3 sisters and Mom and Dad and about how we are all members of so many different “families”. We watched these siblings and so many others grow up as members of our local “swim team family.”
For us, the families we joined over the years have been important because we were so far away from our “real” families. I believe that our girls appreciate that we spent so much time and effort giving them families to belong to wherever we have lived. I wish I could explain that value to kids when I see them whining about getting up for swim practice or whatever it is their poor tired parents are “making” them do. I guess I’m just glad that my girls seem to have learned from our efforts as I see them creating their own families in each place they live.
Nick’s sisters eulogized him, each in their own way, but all with honesty about his wonderful talents as well as his faults. One talked about how amazing it was that an “introvert” surrounded himself with so many different kinds of friends and families. And that is sort of what is wonderful about funerals--it’s the one time that all the different parts of our lives come together in one place. Weddings can be like that too, but you have to be invited to attend. Mike and I used to have big parties in February because our birthdays are two days apart. It was always a tad awkward to bring together so many people who only had us in common. I hope to have more such parties because the truth is that I love that we have so many different types of friends. I know which ones are like family because they are the ones who can drive me crazy but I still want to be with them. I know my sister-friends are the ones who can push my buttons just like a sister, but are also the ones I run to when I need to rail and scream about life or death.
Finally, it is horribly trite to say how awful it is to attend a funeral for a 30 year old. How heartbreaking to watch three sisters try to eulogize their older brother. You think about how important are the first 20 years as siblings, but also about how much they will miss in the coming 30-50 years of their lives. There are no words to describe these thoughts. They swirl around in my brain, as if they were trying to find a place to land. But I stood there in that church, trying to find words, thinking a word would make me feel better. I listened to every word spoken by the priests, his sisters, his cousin, his Dad. They all helped and I hoped that having all of us there was helping them.
My word became SOLIDARITY.
Perhaps that is what funerals are for. We stand together, hoping that our presence helps that family. We try to hold them up so they can take that next necessary step forward. We hope they can hear our hearts telling them how much we love them and hope they know that every single person in that church would do anything for them. Because, we are all family, all standing with them in solidarity.
