There is a sweetness and a sadness to the passing of someone youve known all your life and the tribute paid to them in death. We went to the funeral for Bills Uncle Frank Gardner today. Uncle Frank graced this planet for 91 years. Of Uncle Frank and Aunt Kays 7 children, 3 remain. There are lots of Gardner-Niblick cousins and theyre fun. Bill is one of them. Were all roughly the same age and, I have to say, Bill has a pretty amazing - and large - extended family. Franks children have done this many times before. It never gets any easier but they were calm and composed. The memories of their father offered at the end of the mass by his youngest daughter was poignant, heartfelt, moving and some of it was just downright funny. Wonderful memories of their father, who she described as a gentleman and a scholar. Today, I sat for a while in the funeral home before we went to the church and watched as people came in and paid their respects. Some are there to speak to the family, pay their respects and be on their way. Some paused by his coffin for one last opportunity to see Uncle Frank. Just one last look and a goodbye. Some kneel before his coffin, say a prayer, bless themselves and leave. I wasnt raised in the Catholic church and some of this is an odd curiosity for me. Are there scripted prayers you say? Do you just say whats in your heart? Does it matter if your prayer is silent or spoken? I dont know any of the answers to this. I doubt it matters in the grand scheme of things. Its personal and its not - all at the same time. One person - with whom I am acquainted - knelt by Uncle Frank, said his goodbye and gave Uncle Frank a comforting pat. It was so very sweet and very much in character with the person who did it. That observation will stay with me for a long time. Funerals are very emotional for me and more so when the people who were closest to him and unconditionally loved every day of their lives by him are overcome by their grief and their loss. Thats usually the point where I realize I dont have a tissue. I was OK today even without a tissue. When we got to the cemetery an honor guard was there. Uncle Frank was a veteran of WWII. He was a navigator and he had some very scary navigator experiences that he, by the grace of God, survived more than once. Im pretty sure those honor guard soldiers were 15 or 16 at best - and they were sergeants in the US Army. Everything they did was with such precision and dignity. They folded and presented the flag to one of Uncle Franks handsome, young grandsons and thanked the family for his service to his county. And I was completely done in. But I did have a tissue this time. Uncle Frank was a lot of things to a lot of people. He was also a religious man active for many years in his church. Today he was given ecclesiastical funeral rites of the church and buried in consecrated ground. A life well lived. Godspeed, Uncle Frank.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 21:29:50 +0000
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