Week of February 16, 2014 - Family Stories and Funerals

By Joan Whetzel

 

At the recent passing of my father, our family gathered together, sharing our grief during the days leading up to the funeral. We soon found ourselves recounting some of our family stories. Some of them were mingled with tears. Others elicited laughter.

 

It may seem odd that we should have had laughter and pleasant memories seeing as my dad had just passed. Watch enough TV shows and movies and you get and you get a different message about funerals and the death of loved ones. Hollywood portrays funerals and the families left behind as being filled with nothing but grief. It’s as if only a somber atmosphere and weeping are allowed. Laughter and the happy or funny stories being told at times like these carries a certain taboo, as if laughing is being disrespectful to the recently departed.

 

My boss recently lost two family members within a month, and she too found her family sharing not only their sorrow, but their happy memories as well. She too found that her family broke out laughing when retelling some of their wilder and more “adventurous” times together.

 

Usually these family stories are not written down anywhere. They’re only pulled out and traipsed around the living room at family gatherings. If mom and dad only knew half the things we did while we were still kids, we’d have been on permanent punishment, sitting on time out facing the wall until we were 30 or 40 at least. But that just makes the stories all the funnier.

 

Besides, retelling the funny family stories and the laughing out loud makes it easier to handle the grief. It also helps to reconnect with our departed family members through the memories that mean the most to us.