My Big Fat Mormon Funeral

The past week has been an incredibly challenging one for my family and for myself. Now that the viewings and the funeral are over I am finally able to sit back and reflect on everything that happened.

I'm not a super private person, but my feelings of regret and sadness I will keep to myself. Instead I wanted to share a few stories/memories that I will take with me.

My older sister deliberated on whether or not to bring her 9 yr old son (Daemon) and her 4 yr old daughter (Rowan) to the funeral but in the end was talked into bringing them. She and I walked her son up to the casket to say goodbye to his great grandpa that he had only met twice. We had all tried our best to explain to him that grandpa had died, but it was OK because he is in heaven with Jesus. When we approached the coffin, trying to stay strong but felt the tears about to fall (yet again), my nephew looked at his great grandpa with a studious eye, taking everything in, but all he said was "it's sad."

I went to sit down on one of the sofas aligning the room. Daemon came and sat down next to me. I felt inclined to share some of my adult wisdom with him, to comfort him somehow or maybe it was to prepare him.

"Wow... So I guess this is your first funeral... But unfortunately you will be going to a lot more in your life time because eventually everybody dies."

Not super smooth, I'll admit. But I was grieving and it was the best I could come up with. It didn't phase him however. He looked right at me and said, "Yes but they also live! People get born and they live and they live and they live. Then when they are older, like 89, they die. It is the circle of life Summer."

He said it so matter of factly. I just stared at him and the tears came unabashedly rolling down my face. Here I am trying to tell him about the harsh realities of this world. In an instant he spins it around to let me know that even though there is death, and yeah, that sucks, there is also life! My grandfather lived a long happy life and I would like to believe he would want me to do the same! In fact I know he would. So that is what I intend to do. Keep on living. Keep celebrating life. Learning from every experience, good and bad, cause that is what grandpa would want me to do.


Blogfully yours,
Summer