John’s Funeral

I cried a lot.  Two of his kids sang songs.  I sobbed.  I distracted myself from crying by focusing on the hot black guy handling the audio at the church.

The service was at a Lutheran church in the exurbs, and it basically sounded like an hour-long infomercial for Jesus with a paragraph at the end about John that was read verbatim by a pastor who didn’t know how to pronounce names correctly.  I was slightly disappointed in that aspect of it, because I’ve mostly been agnostic with atheist leanings for the past two decades, and I recently meant to go into various churches to see if the messages have changed or how they are these days.  I was raised Catholic, and I recall a lot of messages about forgiveness, helping others out, social justice.

I wondered recently if maybe proof for the existence of god is that we have the capability to forgive.

Iris was there, and man that woman is just a bitch.  I haven’t seen her for decades.  I smiled at her blank face and asked if she remembered me.  I thought she didn’t because her expression didn’t change.  She just eyed me up and down quick and said "oh yes, I remember you.  You haven’t changed a bit."  No smile, nothing.  I just sat there stunned.  I really wanted to say, "wow, was that a compliment or an insult?" but I bit my tongue.  She is insecure about the attention our mutual friend has given me over the years, and she is far too old to be letting insecurity drive her behavior.

John was loved.  Standing room only, many stories about times John fixed cars.  John had a plan to start a car nonprofit with the help of the local emergency-assistance program.  He was only 52, way too young to die.