When All’s Said and Done

 October 30, 2020

I know how this will play out. I’ve prepared as best I know how, but tomorrow when it’s all over, I’ll think of something I wish I had said. There’s no way 98 years can be adequately honored in the space of an hour. But it will be better than many funerals I’ve done. I’ve buried children, suicides, accident victims, indigents, young and old. The saddest are when the funeral director calls, asking if I can do a service for someone I’ve never met. “They aren’t church people,” he would say. “But they need someone. Can you do it?” I always did if I could, but rarely did I feel good about it. When you don’t know someone, there are any number of minefields into which you can wander, and I always asked if there were areas better avoided. Grief has a way of bringing out the best...and the worst in people. So many of those funerals ended up being sadly generic, no matter how much I worked at ferreting out biographical information from the family. It was even worse when no one showed up.

People have often asked if it is harder officiating at the funeral of a family member or someone I know well, and I have to say, “It’s different, but not hard.” I suppose much of that stems from my unemotional personality. It will hit me, but perhaps not for days, weeks, or even months. In the meantime, there are so many stories, and I don’t have the corner on the market. The grandkids will share and I’ll proclaim the Gospel. We will celebrate with tears a life well lived, thank God together for this woman whose faith and love helped shape us into the image of Christ, and when it’s all said and done, there will be more, so much more that could have been said.