 I attended a funeral recently, my third in less than a year. Three guys, all around my age. One took his own life, another may have too, no one really knows for sure, and the last dead of a heart attack. It gives one pause, especially considering that they were all in their late 40s and early 50s. I also had the pleasure of attending the joyous wedding of some friends in their early 30s a few months back, but the ratio of weddings to funerals has flipped since the days of my youth and it now appears that a disturbing trend is taking shape far sooner then I had previously imagined. When I was a boy, birthday parties served as the key communal celebration for me and my friends. These photo-ready gatherings of friends, family, and classmates were filled with colorful balloons, pointed hats, and at least two flavors of ice cream. And no birthday would have been complete without a candle-laden cake featuring my name oddly scrawled in colored icing. Not until the final candle was extinguished would I be able to receive the many gifts that been set aside for me or realize the fulfillment of my secret wish. Later in life, after my school days had pasted and I'd experienced some of the challenges of making my own way in the world, the gathering of old and new friends, workmates, and soon to be relatives took place in the form of a wedding. My 20s and 30s found me checking wedding registries, attending gender-restricted wedding parties where the Vegas Rule was often invoked, and in some cases, even making travel arrangements to distant destinations, all in the name of kinship, friendship, and everlasting love. These gatherings, like the birthdays of my youth, were joyful affairs, made even more so with the addition of an open bar and live band. I attended my share of weddings during this period of my life, playing the roles of brother, best man, guest and groom. Passing into my 40s and 50s, birthdays became less of a celebration than a reluctant ritual, and weddings lost their luster as friends ventured into the sacred bonds of matrimony for the second or third time. Which brings me back to the funeral I attended today for a former co-worker who was living alone at the time of his passing. We weren't good friends, and in fact, hadn't spoken in many years, but as is often the case in such situations, I attended as a show of support for his family and as a way to address deeply felt, but rarely examined emotions relating to my own mortality. I believe that death is a transition from one phase of life to another. That belief was reinforced in the program that was shared during the service, which stated that my friend had traveled from his mortal life to his eternal life. I found comfort in those words, and apparently, I'm not alone. A study recently conducted in 23 countries found that over 50 percent of individuals polled believe in an afterlife. In the United States, less than 40 percent believed in both heaven and hell, while nearly a quarter of all those polled don't believe in heaven or hell. It was a Catholic service, so there were many mentions of Christ having dead for our sins and how my friend, who was a devout Catholic, had no doubt been accepted into heaven through the redemptive power of faith and the absolution of sins through baptism and confession. Not being Catholic myself, I was able to appreciate what the priest was conveying to the audience about my friend's present state of being, even though my personal beliefs vary from those being expressed. Funerals aren't a time to make judgements on the correctness of religious or spiritual beliefs, but rather to respect the beliefs of all faiths as they are practiced by those whose life we have gathered to celebrate. That's true for both weddings and funerals, and for everyday life. I may be facing a future filled with more funerals than birthday parties and weddings, but I do so with the comfort of knowing that when my own final celebration comes, it will be attended by a lifetime worth of loved ones and friends. If there's any upside to attending the funerals of friends, it must be to daily appreciate the life we're living now and to honor those who we are blessed to have joined us in the journey. |
