dimanche, septembre 12, 2004 I went to Crystal's mom's wake yesterday night, after the Baptist Lay Leader's Conference. I got the usual mixed feelings that come with a wake of a friend's relative: What should I say? being the prevalent sentiment in my mind. I didn't really know her mother - she was present during a birthday or Christmas dinner gathering about two years ago, but at that time she was still mobile and walking around. She had been bedridden for the last couple of months before she passed.Funerals are uncomfortable things. Ridiculous questions suddenly pop up in your mind, like "What do I say? What should I feel? Can we laugh during this time? Are we allowed to smile? Is it appropriate to bother the family to ask to go to the toilet?" Having gone for more funerals in my life than I care to remember, I find that behaviour at the funeral is representative of a hard fact of life: it goes on. People are still happy to meet each other, people still laugh, people still drink and eat and talk, people still go to the toilet. Life goes on. I am in awe of Crystal and her family. They were already amazingly close, and now that her mother is gone, growing ever closer as they weather this crisis together. Every time we ask for her prayer requests, it's always for her family - for her mother to not be in pain, for her family to draw closer together, for her dad, whose anguished heart slowly broke as he sees the woman he loves suffer so much pain. To hear stories told of her mother's beautiful faith and care for people - for the first time, I understood what people sometimes say after a funeral eulogy - "I was sorry not to have known her (better)." [Passing] |
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