EMPATHY AND WHAT IT MEANS TO ME

Going through a funeral is hard and exhausting, physically and emotionally, for everyone involved. The hardest part for me, though, was not necessarily losing my grandfather. There's a certain understanding and expectation, having a grandfather as old as mine (he was 97 when he passed) that there would come a time when he was going to die, and I was somewhat prepared for that reality. I was crushed when I first heard, but after letting that understanding sink in, I feel like I took it well (although, really, I'm not sure). The hard part, though, was spending the weekend so close to my father, who was having a tough time dealing with it, as anyone would. Every time I'd watch him hit another heavy emotional point, I'd feel it with him: the tightness in my chest, the knot in my throat. I will say that being completely helpless to do anything is the hardest thing in the world. The hardest part was the eulogy. I gave him a hug after the funeral, but it still feels so completely inadequate, even as I look back on it.

I was asked initially to speak at the funeral, to give a eulogy of my own, with my brother, but we ended up speaking at the reception. My brother and I wrote a humorous stand-up skit, so to speak, weaving together stories, jokes, and one-liners about my grandfather. Writing it and finally performing it was not as difficult as I might of thought. My whole philosophy going in was to to celebrate the life of my grandfather.

Despite what the religious would have you believe, the wake and the funeral is for the living. It is our chance to say goodbye to our beloved, to let him or her go, and to mourn our loss. Unless you really believe that these rituals NEED to be performed in order to allow the soul into heaven (which I can't buy; why would a higher power make such a small action a prerequisite for heaven? Isn't your WHOLE LIFE enough?), the rituals are for the living; they are part of the grieving process and helps move into a new stage of our lives with this person no longer present. After all this, I wanted to celebrate the long and wonderful life my grandfather had, so we told stories.

Even just telling these stories to my father made, during rehearsal, made him choke up a bit, but telling those stories, I think, was the most helpful thing I could've done. My grandfather, like anyone, goes through difficult times, and sometimes he takes it out on other people. Sometimes, he's hilarious, speaks his mind, and outgoing and good-natured. The point of telling the stories we had of him was to remember him in the best possible light, to remember the things we loved about him, and to celebrate all the wonderful things he gave us. As we went and started to put together the little routine, we got even more stories, and clarifications of stories, and we all laughed and talked about grandpa. It was like he wasn't gone, and then we finished going through it, and my dad excused himself from the room.

You suddenly realize he's gone. And that's what happened, and I felt it with him. I thought the same thing.

You go on, because you have a life to live, but it makes you realize how much more important everything really is, because everything does come to an end. Is this what you're going to want to have done?