Going to a Funeral

 A family friend suffered a loss. His sister--who had been extremely challenging for many years--died unexpectedly.

I remember reading something about relationships. The writer, Irvin Yalom, suggested that troubling relationships are actually the *hardest* to mourn. You might think that a healthy relationship would be very difficult to mourn. But--in a healthy relationship--both parties can consistently say what they need to say. There aren't festering, unarticulated resentments. In a troubling relationship, you're always half-hoping that fences might be mended. So, when the person dies, you're mourning that person, but you're also mourning the hope you had for an "easier" bond. That bond will never see the light of day.

Two interesting things happened at the funeral. One is that the family members explicitly acknowledged that the departed person had been difficult. They did this in an empathic way: They said she'd had a painful life. I was struck by how gracious this sentence was. How powerful to choose *not* to sweep anything under the rug.

The other thing I noticed was this. It's a Jewish tradition to shovel dirt with the bottom--not the top--of the shovel; in my understanding, the use of the bottom half expresses a sense of reluctance. "We understand that we have to say goodbye, but we are also making clear that we are struggling with this particular step."

I didn't have any particular role on this day. I only had to say, "I'm sorry, I can only imagine." (Better this--I've learned--than to claim that "I know how you feel.") At the dinner, I sat with a gay acquaintance and described my fondness for "Shadow of a Doubt." I said that--although the script is not explicitly gay--you can sense Thornton Wilder's "outsider" status in every scene. Wilder makes smart use of his own personal sense of oddness. This was life going on--in the midst of loss. Of course I would find myself at a dinner, ranting about Thornton Wilder.

I felt fortunate--if it's not bizarre to use that word--genuinely fortunate to have been included in this complicated day.