My Father's Funeral

My father's funeral was today.

I spent the entire day in mourning, standing in the receiving line at the church and greeting well wishers - and there were several, too many to count. They all told me how glad they were to know him. The service was about as dignified as it could be. I got separated from my mother to congregate with my paternal relatives and she left early; I would not see her for the remainder of the day.

At the cemetery, the interment ceremony was held in an indoor chapel. I was the last person to leave the chapel before the casket was to be taken to the grave. All I could say was, "It shouldn't have ended this way. It shouldn't have ended so soon."

After the memorial luncheon, I went to the house my father and his wife of eighteen years called home for the past decade. I met most of my cousins' children for the first time. I could have met them much sooner; never a grandfather himself, my dad had been like a third grandfather to his grandnieces and grandnephews. Ironically, it was my cousin's baby daughter - a girl my father barely lived long enough to see -who lifted my spirits. I saw in her the future he will never see - and I possibly may never see. By the time this little girl is as old as I am now, she may one day do something great - settle an international dispute, break an Olympic record, find a cure for cancer - and end up on the cover of Newsweek for it.

Before the service began I looked upon the casket, and I simply muttered, "the weaver's answer" - a reference to the Family song of the same name (the audio clip on my MySpace page, and referenced here before) about an old man asking to view his life as a tapestry and being answered with such a view because his death is moments away. That's the expression I use; my father "received the weaver's answer." I didn't know if anyone heard me. I didn't know if anyone wondered what I meant, as this song is not well-known. I didn't care.

I was not asked to say anything at my father's funeral. I was neither surprised nor offended. I had only the most sporadic contact with him for the past few years. What qualified me to say any more than that he was my father, and that he loved me more than I realized, and that he was proud of whatever I've managed to achieve? My presence at the funeral at least said that much.