lives

And we open my last sweet week of pure freedom with ... a funeral. And please believe me when I say I am not complaining.

I've been going to funerals all my life. I don't know why some parents keep their kids away from them; I think that actually breeds a fear of dead people and death itself. My mom bought me my first diary when I was almost 7, in March of 1985, and the first entry is about the funeral I'd been to that day. "Dear Diary, Today I went to servises (sic). I saw Fong Choy. Love, D_C." Yes, I signed my diary entries with love. Anyway, it went like this: My parents said, "So and So died," took me to the funeral, walked me right up to the front of the church so I could pay my respects (or at least observe them doing so, as most often I did not know such and such tong member or distant relative or whatnot), and that was it. If I had known the person, I was sad or pensive, but if I hadn't, I said my prayers for them and happily ate manapua or mochi or pancit out on the lanai when it was over. No one ever tried to pull the wool over my eyes and tell me So and So was sleeping. There might have been some talk of heaven, but it was made pointedly clear that the dead do not return to Earth.

I can't remember my first funeral, which must have been for my grandfather when I was three and a half or so. I had only been with my parents a year, but I remember being fond of Gung Gung because only he, not my grandmother, spoke English, and he would teach me songs and play with me. I remember him. I don't remember the funeral.

I remember my most recent funeral (before Scott's Uncle Dave), for my Uncle Bob, the family jokester, the fun uncle. My cousin Lin, 13 or 14, had been especially close to him, and my most vivid memory of the day is the sound of her unabashed weeping at the family service. I felt his loss acutely - even during his life, as he degenerated, I despaired - but when he left I had nothing like the others had to share. I envied my older cousins, now in their 40s and 50s, who as kids had piled into the backseat of his Buick for long days at the beach, getting their legs swatted with dry towels till not one speck of sand remained on their calves before they climbed back in for the long ride home. They had such stories to tell. And I envied Lin and her generation, daughters and sons of my older cousins, who experienced Uncle Bob's second youth. My brother and I, children of the family's youngest (and therefore the youngest of the older generation of cousins), were smack in the middle of the two groups. We'd had lots of fun times with Uncle Bob, to be sure, but we had never been to the beach in the Buick, and we never swam at the retirement home pool. When I stopped being a brat and remembered that I'd been lucky to have him as my uncle at all, I enjoyed the togetherness of the family - and yes, went outside to eat rice cake and manapua with the cousins.

In between, there were dozens of other funerals. So casual talk of wills, casket selection, embalming fluid, and the outrageous price of a decent plot at a centrally located cemetery is all old hat to me. The details of death never stand in the way of the purpose of the service - to commemorate the life. Today's service for S's uncle was different than any I'd been to - it was short and it was attended by just 11 people and Uncle Dave's devoted Maltese. (I think, though, that he'd probably want the dog included amongst the people, so we'll just say 12 people. After all, Pee Wee did come to lunch afterwards.) Simplicity can be beautiful. It reminds me that no matter how elaborate, all ceremonies - weddings, funerals, whatever - should not be so puffed-up that you can't find the pure essence behind it at a moment's notice. You should be able to step into the space and say, "What's this about?" "This is about a beautiful life." "This is about a union of hearts." "This is about a job well done."

Clearly, S's uncle's service was about a life lived well by a well-loved man.