Always go to a funeral response - blog 6/29

I believe I wrote earlier in the blog about how people will find themselves. In Deirdre Sullivan's Always Go to the Funeral, she points out how even though its an inconvenience, you still always go to someones funeral.

I actually had this encounter not so much as an inconvenience but merely as an unexpected instance in life. A family member of mine had passed away. The problem with a death in the family that shocks everyone is the one where arrangements are made at the last minute, outfits, who will be a pall bearer, who will say what? Do I mention the uncle that isn't here that our recently departed loved that everyone disliked? Where will everyone eat afterwards? It's a shuffle. Almost like planning a wedding, family can be the worst or the best at big life events, birth, marriage, and death. The funeral was not an inconvenience. I would have went anywhere to remember this person, as much of an influence as he was in my wife's life. The people who had to sacrifice time to make the trip. It's really something when it happens so fast.

On the other hand I have experienced funerals where we knew someone was passing, almost a week before it happened. It was so surreal, everyone had taken off of work a week before, came home and made plans almost to the day that they would return to their homes. The funeral director proclaimed it had been the most well put together funeral he had ever directed. Everything just fell into place. It's strange how this all happened though.

 I like how the author showed that going to funerals is an inconvenience. What she doesn't mention is how much of an inconvenience death is for the person who has died. To know looking down that all these people had to miss work because of them. To be dead pure and simple. Is death really an inconvenience for everyone?