Tears at a Funeral, by Matt Shirley

My grandmother died recently.  Although she was 89 years old, her death was a surprise, as deaths tend to be.

As I made my way to and from Wichita, Kansas for the funeral, I was inundated with calls and texts.  The questions were typical: ‘How was the funeral?  Are you doing OK?  Was the death expected?’  They wanted me to tell them happy things—things that would make them feel better about my situation.  They wanted me to tell them that the funeral was lovely, and that it was my grandma’s time to go, and that I was doing just fine.

But I didn’t say anything like that.  Instead, I said that the funeral was sad, and that I had cried a lot, and that the whole situation was quite terrible.

In telling the truth, my goal wasn’t to bring my friends and family down into my personal pit of despair; I didn’t say I was sad because I wanted other people to feel sad.  I said I was sad only because that’s the way things went.  The funeral WAS sad – possibly the saddest event of my entire life.  And I did cry.  I cried A LOT.  More than the week following the death of my childhood dog and my first time through Where The Red Fern Grows combined.  And I DID feel terrible.  Even writing this makes me feel terrible, because I loved my grandmother, and now she’s gone.

But people don’t want to hear these things.  Instead, they’d prefer to escape the facts with phrases like, “It was her time to go” or “She’s in a better place now.”   They weren’t doing anything wrong when they patted my hand and said these lines—they were simply trying to protect themselves, and others, from more sadness.

But I wasn’t doing anything wrong by being sad either.

People are scared of forming relationships for many reasons.  They might fear rejection.  Or they could lack confidence in their social skills.  But I believe it’s fair to say that one of the chief reasons relationships scare people is the knowledge that most relationships end in pain.

It seems like an amateurish outlook on pain and love but they’re right. No one looks forward to the sadness of losing someone, whether that loss is caused by a boyfriend-stealing skank in geometry class or by stomach cancer in an intensive-care unit.  But, as my uncle Tom so eloquently said in the eulogy he delivered at my grandmother’s funeral: That’s what you get for forming such a loving bond.

And these bonds are almost always worth the pain they eventually bring.

I’m proud to be sad about my grandmother’s death.  And I’m proud of all the tears I shed – both at the funeral and in the writing of this piece.  Those tears make me realize the importance of the bond that I shared with my grandmother.

I’m prouder still of my behavior the evening following my grandmother’s funeral.  I didn’t make a harrowing speech like my uncle.  Or coordinate all of the plans without the slightest complaint like my mother. I wasn’t brave like my grandmother’s last remaining sibling, or funny like my cousin from Kentucky.  All I did was sit down to a game of cards with some of the most important people in my life, and have a great time.

Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a few tears and a sad heart stand in the way of forming loving connections with more great people.

Great people just like my grandma.