The internet/Facebook/TV give us so many amazing stories. Here are 10 things that give funerals both a deep and broad sense of meaning and value: Funerals can be both deeply spiritual events and celebrations mixed with music, poetry and beauty. They’re neither “just for the living” nor must they be the traditional viewing, priest, eulogy and funeral director format (although none of these things are bad … especially the funeral director *wink* *wink*). Just burn my ass and throw me in the woods.”īut funerals are both much deeper, much more important and much broader than most of us assume. Many people tell me “I don’t want a funeral. We can all agree that this particular disease, this particular addiction is worthy of our most harsh, most striking, most caustic curse words we can find.© 2013 Justin Dolske, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio There’s no shame here towards the addict. I understand that shame is never the path to healing. I’m tired of children asking, “what happened to mommy?” and “when will she wake up?” at funerals. I’m tired of hearing the empty cries of “My, baby, my baby! How did this happen?” How did we get here?” when the mother sees her son in a casket. I’m tired of unstitching and embalming autopsied bodies that are discolored and broken down by addiction. I haven’t seen him in five years so I don’t have any expectations.”įUCK HEROIN. “Yes, you can,” I say, “but this doesn’t look like the man you expect to see.” The son replies, “That’s fine. “Can I just see my dad one more time?” the young man asks. How do I respond when that very same young husband follows it up with, “how do I explain this to my kids?”Īnd then there are the times when the body has been left somewhere, abandoned by so called friends, and it’s starting to decompose. What do I say to the young husband who tells me, “We don’t have any money for a funeral, she blew our savings and her life on this relapse.” That she was excelling in college, holding a steady relationship with her boyfriend, working part-time and now she’s on our morgue table. Or the parents who tell me with blank expressions that they had absolutely no idea their daughter was using. I haven’t slept in years, but last night I actually slept because I knew he wasn’t out hurting himself or someone else.” How about the parents who tell me, “I’m glad it’s over. Or, what do I say to the 30-year-old wife with three kids and no income, little support and now she has no husband.įuck it. Or, what do I say to the sixteen-year-old son who wants me to call him as soon as I get his mom to the funeral home because “that will be the first time in my life that I’ll know exactly where she’s at”. This was supposed to be the beginning of her life, not the horrible end. I don’t say it because it’s impolite and I’m supposed to be the even minded professional to your grief clouded bereavement.īut, “I’m sorry for your loss” and “my deepest condolences” just don’t work when a 19-year-old daughter was found in the basement of her friend’s house after two stints in rehab and five months clean. That’s what I want to say when I get a phone call from a crying son, daughter, husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend telling me their loved one has died from an overdose. Photograph Author URL: Title: Fuck Heroin
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