I hate funerals.

So i have to write a eulogy for my mom. nobody is forcing me but it needs to be done. Her memorial service is set for next Thursday. I know its almost 3 weeks after the fact, but there are family and friends that want to be there and moms ashes not going anywhere. I hate the whole idea of a funeral. i just don't get it. people keep telling me its for the ones that survived . a chance to say good bye. a part of the healing process. i have just never seen them that way. I see them as a wallow fest. i see them as gathering people together that, other than family, have never gotten a chance to see you blubber like a child. there is a steady progression of people that come forward whose sole goal is to make you feel even worse. Come in , sit down. you know how your feeling bad about your mom dying, well heres a few fucking anecdotes to remind you of what you've lost. think you feel bad now? wait it gets better. here comes a crying grandson to remind you of more things you'd forgotten. this not enough for you? how about some sad music . oh come on your not nearly sad enough. why don't you get up and try to blubber your way through a few words. why don't you come up here and try to explain to people just how bad you feel. why dont you try and find words to express a lifetime of moments. then when your done we can all gather together at the grief buffet and pretend that everything is now ok. we sent her off in style. people felt really horrible for the hour it took to punch you in the heart. have some chicken. im sorry i just don't get it.

At the grief buffet people will come over to you with the head tilt of farstigaden and you get to thank them for taking time out of their busy live to make you feel worse. your job is to thank them for this. yes it was a lovely service , mom would have been pleased. what the fuck? mom would have been more pleased not to be dead thank you very much , so stop eyeing her knickknacks , take some chicken and go away. and thank you for reminding me about the time mom had done something so fucking noble that you felt compelled to come here and make me cry. i have my own life time of memories of how great she was and to be honest. you really don't understand anything. you cant possibly understand whats going on inside my heart right now because your not me. nobody is. hell at this point im not even sure whats going on inside me. I know people need to say something. and awkwardly silent gathering with only the sound of eating would while be hilarious to me, probably be rather awkward to those attending. so we go through it and we sit in our little grief seats and try to make people feel better for gathering to make us feel worse. we thank them for coming and realize that they are as lost as we are for the words needed, because so far none have been invented.

After everyone has gone and its just the family we do what is necessary. we talk shit about the people that came. did you see what so and so was wearing? and who was the guy in the hat? we make fun of those that cared because at this point. its well and truly over. moms gone and there is nothing left to make it somehow better. no more arrangements, no more tributes, just the cold stark reality that we are now and forever on our own. you make plans to visit the graves and on her birthday bring flowers, but as time and details get in the way, you just don't have time this year, you'll do it next week. and eventually even that stops happening as time and life make it harder and harder to relive the death. it has to. you can't constantly make yourself go through that horror as a tribute to someone. not someone that spent her life making sure you were protected from this very thing.
so i will write a eulogy. it will be poignant and witty and touch the heart strings of those attending, as i do my share to make everyone feel just a little worse about losing someone they loved. people will come up to me and tell me how touched they were by the words i used to define my mom. I will sift through a lifetime of history and i will remind others of the nuggets ive found. i will find millions of words to say the simple sentence " i love you mom and will miss you with every ounce of me." I will do my best to find the words for which there are none. i will try to some up love and loss and joy and everything she is to me in a few paragraphs and when someone with chicken stuck to their lower lip and a pocket full of knick-knacks comes to me and tells me what a good job ive done and how proud my mom would be of me. i will do everything in my power not to shake them and try to make them understand that the words ive written were not for my mom, but for them. because mom never needed the words. all she ever needed was a hug.