Eulogy

 

I’m at the age when most emails are links to friends’ obituaries. They are dropping like flies.

I’m not one who is fond of funerals and try to avoid the whole emotional grief thing. Whether you believe that the forementioned person is on the stairway or the highway, as John Prine said, “When you are dead, you are a dead peckerhead.”

I’ve only been asked once to add to a eulogy. This was a remembrance about a guy I worked with at the newspaper. I didn’t know him very well but they couldn’t find anyone else. I made a few comments on the fly that were published and I don’t even think they printed an obituary.

Most of my family are gone to the great beyond and what would I have said about them? Now, many of the people I’d spent special moments with are leaving. Oh, the tales I could tell, but that is not what the eulogy is about. Don’t speak ill of the dead.

Being asked to stand in front of a congregation before the grieving family and the box holding the remains, what do you say?

There are certain etiquette requirements for giving a eulogy. State your name and what relationship you had with the corpse. Give a brief, yet tearful, uplifting story about the two of you before stressing how much this person will be missed and leave the podium for the next rinse and repeat.

Sometimes the only eulogy is given by the preacher where this mournful occasion is held. The preacher might be a friend of the family but the bereaved have no information to bequeath during this moment of sorrow. A Google search may give some tidbits, but it won’t delve into the depths of who this person truly was when breathing.

Does his sister talk about how he molested her when she was 12? Does his father talk about how he vomited over having too much bourbon? Do friends talk about those intimate moments you wouldn’t confess to a priest?

Set up a PowerPoint display to view whatever selfies that might bring tears or laughter from the crowd. This is the last Good-bye, so might as well have a party.

This person whose name will be etched in stone before being dumped in a hole led a full life, flaws and all. The newspaper may list all the organizations and community participation's with those who had gone before and those who remain, but that doesn’t tell the full story.

That will be shared at the bar after all is said and done. If lucky, the tales will be expounded on and the name will become a legend.

Yes, you will be talked about after you are dead.