what i'd start a funeral with....

having sat thru two funerals and feeling many different things,
i wanted to spend a moment to write what i'd start a funeral with.
it's just therapy for me today. if you have a moment and want to read,
go for it. if not, that's okay too. i just needed to type this out....



we gather today to honor a life that touched our hearts, and to grieve
a passing that we just can't fully understand.

when someone comes along and touches us, it changes us. sometimes
the change is so big and obvious, there's no question as to how our lives
are different. and sometimes the touch was so quick, it's hard to believe
the difference it made. but the fact that we're here is absolutely because
of those differences that person has made in us now. and to honor that is
to honor the one who passed.

when someone we care about dies, it throws everything into a confused
jumble and at the same time, it organizes life for us with perspective.

the fleetingness of it all, the reminder to live fully and presently, not to waste
what we have, comes slamming down on us.the things we care about and love
the most come forward into focus. and the ache and the fear of the the grieving
of our loss covers us.

some of us have a faith we turn to lean heavily on. it is truth for us which is why
we can lean so fully into it. some of us thought we had a faith to lean on and then
realized it's not there for us right now. that it doesn't fit anymore. and some of us
have only questions, no answers, nothing in particular to hold on to.

all of these places are valid, none is better than the other. wherever we are in our
hearts as we sit here is where we are and there's value in every place on the journey.
if we open to wherever we are, and listen to our fears, our hopes our struggles,
we become more. for it is in the act of listening and trusting our process that we
create space to grow and move deeper into being all we can be.

whatever faith our loved one was, we will celebrate today wrapped in that perspective.
it may not fit your own, but it was theirs and we honor their journey, their beliefs.
some say jesus, some say yahweh, some say the divine, but the essence of all these
things is what matters today.

the essence of love - love so deep and so wide and so beyond our comprehension-
that's what's behind the words today.

don't get stuck in the words, the rules you feel go hand in hand with those words.
don't get stuck there. go to a place of love as you sit here.

try to hold gratitude for the time you shared with our loved one. it was a gift,
a privilege and an honor. let us hold it as that as deeply as we can.

if frustration, anger, hurt or any feeling at all comes charging in - allow it.
those are our responses to loss and fear and the not understanding of the mystery
of it all.

whatever our beliefs, we can probably all agree that it's a mystery. a mystery
which we will all enter at some point. let us sit here together and let that bond us,
and let our bond of being human hold us today.

and let us turn to honoring the one we all care about and the one we're all here
for today...let us turn to holding them as fully as we can as a group and somehow
understanding that just that very act will be an act of honoring them that matters.