spirituality

Remembrances

Luckily, I don’t attend funerals very often. Before Grammie’s service last week, the last time I’d been to a funeral was in 2003, when I attended a string of services: my Memaw’s in May, a drum corps acquaintance’s in October, and Amy’s grandpa in December. Each remembrance is different — Memaw’s, for instance, was held in a small room in a funeral home in Parma, with only close family and friends, while the service for Steve (a well-known and popular drum corps / drumline instructor) was held in a large church that held hundreds.

Never before Grammie’s service, though, had I considered the very different healing properties of a viewing or wake versus an actual funeral service. I think that, as atheists, Aaron and I ended up getting much more out of the viewing than the funeral.
Continue reading →