I flew to Colorado over the weekend for the funeral of my aunt. She died way too young, taken very quickly by cancer. Fuck cancer! Let me say that again. Fuck cancer! As I had had the chance to fly back to see her before she died, my family told me that it wasn’t necessary to come back for the funeral. After all, two plane tickets in the span of a month can add up. But I know myself, and knew that I needed to go. For me the funeral helps bring closure. It is part of my grieving process. Yes, I have a grieving process. Sad to say, I have lost enough people in my life, that grieving really isn’t anything new. From the ages of 8 – 20, I lost a family member every even year of my life. Let’s just say that as the day of my 23rd birthday arrived I let out a huge sigh of relief. No one else had died. The streak had been broken.
Now I just seem to lose people sporadically. I’m not really sure which is worse. At any rate, over the years I have come up with my own path of grief. My own beliefs of why these things happen, and why life can sometimes be so cruel. I had to come up with my own beliefs because I don’t believe in religion. I do not believe in god almighty, or that Jesus was our savior, or that if we live a righteous life we will go to heaven. I know that what I just described is Christianity and that there are many varieties and flavors of religion to choose from, but at the end of the day, I can’t find faith to believe in the teachings of any of them. I just can’t make that leap. So I have my own set of beliefs and mores that I live by and most days they suit me just fine and I am not left wanting.
But this funeral that I attended kind of shook me up. It was the most god-centric funeral I’ve ever been to. Before you ask, no, my aunt was not religious and neither is the person who set the whole thing up. So why the service consisted almost entirely of scripture, or explanations of said scripture I don’t know. It did though, and the priest offered up his condolences and then spent his time is reassuring us that this was god’s will, that Maggie was now in his presence awaiting the arrival of her loved ones. That we were to take comfort from the word and the promises of our lord.
This is all well and good, and from the looks of some of the people present, this did indeed provide them with some comfort. For that I am glad. However, my question becomes, where are the faithless supposed to go to find comfort? Where is our Gilead so that we may find a balm to soothe our aching souls? Is there any comfort for the faithless? That service was not meant for me, or anyone of my ilk. He may as well have been speaking in Latin, it would have meant the same. And I guess that isn’t an easy question to answer, as those without a proscribed faith all have different beliefs and therefore must find their own paths to peace of mind and soul. It’s really made me think and to some degree reevaluate the beneficial nature of an organized religion.
I still can’t make that leap of faith to believe myself though. I was however, able to find closure of my own amidst the very religious service. My aunt was a big Elvis fan, and one of the songs played was “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which I just so happened to write about last week. It is my favorite song, and unbeknownst to me, it was hers as well. So that is something that I will always have. Go figure. My balm was found in Graceland.
