Funeral for a friend's sister and thoughts on her service

I attended a funeral today. It was nobody I'll claim to have known intimately; hell, it was nobody I will say I met more than five times. They were a memorable five times, but you can't say you understand the full breadth of a person after such a scant few meetings.

No, I was there for my friend, her brother. From the stories I heard over the last couple days, I wish I had gotten to know his sister a lot better. She sounded like a pretty cool person, someone who made you laugh in-spite-of, no matter what. If I could ease the pain of my friend and everyone else who knew her, I would...but it's hard to lose someone like that, and impossible to replace them.

Being a little detached from the direct grief (I mourn for my friend, whom I love and hate to see suffering), I was kind of bothered by the Catholic service in a couple ways. Everything they did essentially amounted to a four-hour infomercial about the joy and splendor this girl was now experiencing thanks to the Catholic religion, and how you too could see it if you just gave your life over to them.

At the wake, following a long sermon, they allowed her friends and family to speak. It was the only moment in the whole two-day affair that was really dedicated to her. Sure, the priest tried to tie aspects of her life in to his service, essentially comparing her to disciples, saints and prophets; however, the last I checked, she was none of those. She was a person who was loved by many, and who should have had much more time dedicated to her.

In one of my favorite moments, a few of us secularists were off in a corner, and one of them summed up what we were feeling perfectly: “That Jesus guy was a little arrogant, huh?”

Yes. Yes He was. But He is also giving...what's-her-name eternal life. That's a fuckload more than any of us can provide for her right now, ain't it?

But maybe we don't need to hear your commercial. Maybe we needed to have more of those human moments wherein we admitted we didn't know what to do, felt powerless, and...hell...missed the girl we were there to mourn. I've never met an apostle. I don't miss them. I feel like I missed out on an opportunity to meet a pretty cool chick, but...if the angry glares of the priest are any indication of the culture surrounding Jesus, I don't think I missed out on anything 2,000 years ago.

We should have been celebrating the life we were there to honor, not watching a ham-handed man who was talking about something else try to loosely tie her in to his topic at hand.

To her friends and family...hell. Who knows. Maybe she's up there cruising with Janis Joplin in a Mercedes Benz, headed over to see all the other family you poor people have lost in the last few years. Probably what she would've wanted. It's the best we can hope for at this point.

And, Steve...I'm sorry this happened, sir. I can only begin to know what Mary meant to you. If you read this and need anything, just let me know.

(...and yeah, that song is pretty fucking terrible.)