The Openings and Closings we call ‘Funerals.’

The Openings and Closings we call ‘Funerals.’

Even after 40 years, I still regard it as a poignant privilege to attend a funeral. Perhaps more so now that my own funeral draws ever closer. Frequently, I’m the person up front trying to make sure that it all goes smoothly, but at the same time not drawing attention to myself. It’s not about me. It has never been about me.

Someone popped up once in the back row of the funeral whom I didn’t know. We got chatting at the wake over a couple of frothies and some sausage rolls.

In his own words, he had come for ‘closure’, and what lay behind his comment I take to my own funeral and grave.

But he was right. Funerals are about closure. What is past and gone must now be commended to the past and gone. We may not forget about the person, but we can never get them back again, no matter how much we might ache to.

Funerals are also about opening. We are invited to a different, new, wonky, rocky pathway. One which, if we are honest, we would rather not have to stumble along. But we have no choice, and pained and grumpy as we might be, this long and tortuous path is the one we must tread.

Some of us are crazy enough to believe that the one we think we have left behind often walks with us. Encourages us, maybe even weeps with us and always cheers us on. For them to,o something has changed. There is closure on their past life, but what if in dying to this world they live refreshed, liberated and renewed in another dimension where the distance between them and us is disconcertingly thin. Closure and opening coexist in the same place and at the same time.