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We Buried a Good Man Today
Decompressing from ten years of funerals as a Certified Celebrant has been a slow process. I knew full well that my “grief quotient” was at the FULL level after so many months of Covid funerals. So a few months ago I had given my supervisor notice that I was going to retire from funerals and meeting with grieving families to plan a funeral service. Too many grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, children. Too many difficult meetings as we all struggled together to find the best ways and words to honor the ending of a life force, the deceased who was their loved one only hours ago.
However, I did leave the caveat that if a family requested me to do their service, I would step in and help them do so. Thus, I found myself meeting with a very familiar family I had met twice before. The gentleman who had just died very suddenly was the son of both a mother and father that I had honored in recent years, 2015 and 2017. Sadly, I remembered him so well. I remembered him because he was just such a nice guy. Quiet, serious but with a ready smile and sense of humor. A rare man in that he was what I would term “steadfast”.
His wife was devastated. His death was unexpected and sudden. She was recently retired, him a few years before her. She stayed working locally while he went up to northern Iowa to favorite hunting land they owned, and slowly built their dream home. She joined him weekends…
