Happy Funerals

I went to a funeral on Sunday. I was what you would call, uneventful, no one cried for the dead. 

 

       It’s sad that in this world we live in, young people seem to die so much more than old people. Older persons are living longer and persons in my age group cannot seem to find the elixir to life. Some old people love to eat pork, beef, ice-cream, all the thing the doctor warns us sternly about and yet they live to wreath almost infinite ages. What really is the secret to a long life?

At the church, while the remembrance was being given I poked my sister and told her a silly joke. She looked at me despairingly and tried her best to ignore me. I poked her again and smiled. Of course this time I got more than a look. She asked, in a disapproving voice “ You really are here to celebrate life huh?”. I conceded that I was, because coming to the funeral of a lovely soul who got the opportunity to have 100 graceful years on this earth should be a joyous occasion. She was 100!

No one cried at the funeral. No one cried at the graveside, well, except a girl of about 6 who was probably a great-great grandchild and who probably never before saw a body being lowered into a grave. She probably never saw concrete that was so… final…as it boxed our loved one, in pink-flowered casket and all.

I was not sad. She was a wonderful woman. She always had a smile from ear to ear, sometimes I think I could move my mouth… not make ea sound and she would still smile. A devout Christian the congregants said, a melodious voice they said, a wonderful addition to God’s kingdom.. So indeed why cry?

I cannot really be sad at funerals again anyway, even if I wanted to be. This is because of a funeral I attended in 2006.  A little boy, my son, though not of my 100flesh, lay in eternal rest. I was heartbroken, I never questioned life as much as I did in that period. After that, I changed. There would be no more sad funerals for me.

The truth is, if i get to be 100, I want to be celebrated, because the generations I have brought forth should then know longevity runs in the family, our days are not necessarily numbered three(3) score plus ten, and there may still be eternity after the age of 60.

My sombre truth, what say you?