Yesterday Vero, Larisa and I went to Greg’s memorial service. Point #1 – Church parking lots aren’t what they used to be, indicating to me that this is a clear proof that membership is down. I had to park approximately 23 kilometers away (at least it felt that way after walking back to the church in the biting -30 cold) but I survived the chilling walk (barely. I think my ear fell off along the way.)
It was a packed house and we managed to get a spot in the back pew (oh memories of Christmas) and I managed to find a chair to sit on outside of the pew (as there wasn’t enough room for me). An excellent memorial service in my opinion…it had a choir (Greg was part of a choir back in Montreal), it had insightful readings, it had some great hymns (although SOME people didn’t hear the point about Amazing Grace’s third verse being sang in French and they gave me some strange looks) and some excellent memories brought up by friends and family.
We then headed to the kitchen area to munch on some food (where we noted that there was no crust on the sandwiches usually at a funeral…why is that?). There was a massive lineup and we discovered that it was due to Greg’s parents (or I’m assuming they were his parents, I’ve never met them) at the entrance of the room. It was nice to see some photos of Greg and they had some of his music playing in the background. It was also nice to see Phil there and we got to chat with him for a few moments. I personally felt a little out of place considering I didn’t know any family or friends of Greg (other than Phil) so I didn’t spend too much time there. I came to pay my respects to a friend and hear some great memories of the guy. On my way out, I picked up a hacky sack that they left in memory of Greg as he was known to carry one at many times. That was a thoughtful possession to give to everyone.
I was commenting with Larisa and Vero on how being at a memorial service makes you think about your own life and more specifically, how you would want things happening at your own memorial service. Some may say this is a morbid thought process, but I think it’s just natural to think about aspects of death while at a memorial service. For example, I would hope that somehow they get a choir in for my funeral (otherwise everyone in the church will have to belt the tune and you know nowadays 99% of people don’t like singing unless there’s a karaoke machine in front of them) and they rip into a Christmas-powered singing of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” because for some reason, they never sing that one at the church at Christmas anymore and that disappoints me. That’s a killer tune. Silent Night has nothing on it. Get me the planning committee for the Christmas service at St. Mark’s!
I was thinking, where do your thoughts of your memorial go? Are they with your will? Are they with a loved one? I’m going to make a wild assumption that the older you get, the better idea of what you want to happen (or the sheer fact that you don’t even really care) and you’ll let someone know, whereas a young buck like me doesn’t really sit and think about these things until something snaps and makes you sit up and realize that death can come at anytime. It’s a scary thought…unless you are Socrates, chances are, you have some fear of death. However, I think that this fear is correlated with your age. Once you reach a certain age, you may be comfortable with the prospect of death. Plato writes of how Socrates was not afraid of death because if a philosopher’s main goal in life is to obtain ultimate truth/knowledge, then the only way to do this is to escape the body, as the body brings the soul down into material wants/needs…health issues, want for a better body, better wealth, etc. The soul can’t obtain the truth as it wants until it sheds the vessel that keeps it tethered here on Earth. So that being said, once you realize this (and if you believe it) then I suppose you’d have a much easier time with the acceptance of death.
I suppose that if you really care a lot about certain aspects of your own memorial service (like how they should play some classic AC/DC tunage and have everyone do their best leg-guitar move, even the old timers!) then you should write it down somewhere and let someone know where it is.
Anyhow, that’s that. Greg, you were a good guy, and judging from all the amazing memories and the amount of people that showed up at the service, you were loved by all because you gave your love to all. Here’s to you, brother.
iplaying: The Water – Feist (The Reminder)