As a kid I attended lots of funerals. I had a relative who worked in health care and as the patients died and being a small town, they either knew them, knew someone who knew them, or were related to them.
I don’t mind these memories. In fact many of them have meant a great deal to me. Since I was a kid I didn’t know these people, and so there was no personal loss or emotional tie that I had to address. I did see suffering up close and I grew to respect and admire people who lost people they loved.
Why am I sharing that now? I was thinking of a story that was set in a funeral home and it may seem kind of weird for me to share lots of funeral home stories and not set the context for them.
The story I was thinking about was when an unexpected death happened to the father and a prominent member of the community. I had written a story on him as a reporter, just because I wanted to understand better what he did and I admired his family.
Now I say all of that to say this. He had different political beliefs than mine, was conservative, was in a different religion but besides all of that I found he was a good, honest, helpful person and someone that many people could learn from. Just because someone doesn’t believe as we do mean that aren’t a worthwhile person.
When I was in the funeral line sharing stories of the deceased I happened to have 3 other remembers of his family who I had relationships with. One was my swimming instructor, one did something else I can’t remember, and one did something else I can’t remember now. I joked that without their family I wouldn’t have half of the skills that I do now nor enjoy swimming and everyone laughed.
People need to laugh even when they are in pain and while I did not try to be funny, it was funny and I was glad that I gave them a moment of relaxation. Life is hard, and kindness is so critical.