KORONER’s KORNER: `R funerals fun?

BLASPHEMY!  SACRILEGE!  I’m sure those are a few of the initial reactions when some folks read the title of my article this week.  Hopefully, those people will read further than just the title and see what I mean.

While serving (my country) in the military and the Department of Defense, I would come home for two occasions: the annual Picnic, and funerals for the deaths of my or my father Leo’s friends.  I would regularly see Donna Witt at the funeral home where she worked and I started telling her, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”  Donna and her husband Clarence had a small station next to my dad Leo’s Standard Station for years, so Donna has known me since I was a child.

Donna no longer works at the funeral home, and I no longer must take leave to drive a thousand plus miles home to attend a funeral.  One thing I learned during those visits was that while I thought I was coming back for a sad visit, while I sat in the pews, I could hear people laughing and talking and sharing memories of their youth, especially in relation to the departed.  I was surprised at first to hear people laughing at a funeral, but the more I came back the more often I heard the laughter.  Usually it was at the visitation, but the camaraderie and stories were regaled again at graveside services.  Funerals themselves were a solemn occasion, but the after services dinner lightened people’s minds up some, and more stories were told about the decedent and things done that sometimes people had never known who the guilty party was decades ago.

I just returned from the funeral of the husband of my first cousin, once removed.  She thought she was my second cousin and to tell you the truth, I had to look it up to see what the difference is.  This all happened in Fort Scott, and I wondered as I prepared to attend how many people I would see there that I knew, if any?  But my cousin seemed like she needed family close to her, and it was not only my duty, but my honor and privilege to feel so needed by her.

Sure enough, I recognized hardly a soul at the funeral.  Teresa and I took our seats off to the side while waiting for the funeral to start.  I remembered how the Bible says that when you go to a friend’s house, you don’t take your place at the table of honor and risk being told to step down, but you take the lowest seat in the house and if deemed necessary, you will be honored by being asked to sit at the main table.  This has backfired on me in my life before as I was accused of ignoring the host by sitting at the far table.  In that case, the purpose was to honor the graduation of my grandson, whom I sat by and exchanged conversations with.  He was the guest of honor, and I thought I should honor him, not the host who threw the party for him.

This time, I was surprised when an usher approached me and stated that the widow had asked for my presence with the family in the rear.  I wondered if I had made the wrong decision on where to sit but then realized that my presence meant more to her than I had ever considered.  She and I are getting to be the last of the old-time Greens that are still here in the area.  She was the daughter of ‘Moose’ Green, who was a brother to my grandpa Robert Green and great uncles Lee and Jimmy Green here in El Dorado Springs.

At the gravesite I saw many of the same faces I hadn’t recognized at the funeral, but there were fewer, so their faces started to imprint on me.  Then came the dinner.  I sat at a table with other family members and as the conversation turned to who each person was and how they were related, it became more and more surprising to me just how close we all were.  Gary and Chris had always said we needed to have a Green’s reunion, but as the years of inaction on my part went by, my relatives slowly began to age and die off or move away.  Ed Morlan had married my cousin Sheri Green (Lee’s daughter) and they were both gone.  Gary and Chris had moved to Colorado.  Another distant cousin in Carthage had passed away in the last year.

My inaction on arranging a Green’s get-together meant there were fewer Greens to get together.  But at that dinner I realized that my sadness in seeing another relative pass away was quickly being erased by the joy I felt in getting acquainted with my long-lost relatives.  We all shared stories of funny things that had happened with my dad Leo, and it seemed like EVERYONE knew Leo.  That made me so glad and proud.

And that’s why I titled this article ‘R Funerals Fun?’  Because funerals take place days after a death, sometimes, though not always, we have become numbed by the pain of the loss of a loved one.  Having lost my son, I can tell you that pain never truly disappears.  The years just somehow make it easier to talk about; but I personally detest the use of the word ‘closure’ as to me there is often no closure, we just go on with life and remember the good times.

And that’s the fun at a funeral.  You all sit around and remember the good times and talk with those you haven’t seen in years, if ever.  Don’t skip going to the next funeral.  Don’t just sign the guest book and walk away.  Go to the funeral and help someone remember the good times in their life.

Danny Leo Green,

Coroner, Cedar County