i went to my senior prom with a girl who i sort of knew. she was always somewhere around the 30-40th percentile of attractiveness until senior year until she lost a lot of weight. and then she was definetely 70-80th percentile. for some reason she couldnt find a date when the time came and i was just a weird dork so i asked her so she wouldnt have to go alone.
she was really pretty. i specifically remember her dress, light blue, covered in a grid of independently connected sparkly rectangles. when i put my hands on her hips i remember feeling so bad about openly considering her unnatractive just a few months earlier. i saw her on the beach at senior week and she was even hotter than the traditional anorexic girls. the perfect size between skinny and not.
nobody knows yet why she died, i just got the call. it was in her sleep. i cant imagine its what it seems like it might be, but i dont think it ever does seem that way.
ive always wondered how i would respond to my first real death. i wasnt really that close to her, we only hung out a few times. i feel obligated to feel much worse than i do. no tears.
really the main thing that has come into my mind (and this has really called into question my sanity, or, more likely the possibility of my mild autism or asperger’s syndrome), what will i say to her parents?
i think that- no i look forward to presenting her parents with what i feel will be a uniquely gratifying paragraph of remembrance. nobody at that funeral is going to be talking about how pretty they thought she was, but thats because nobody there knew her primarily as their prom date.
i will reintroduce myself as the random guy she went to the prom with. i talked to her throughout high school but was never too close. i thought she was surprisingly beautiful in her presumably expensive dress. i specifically remember her dress 5 years later and can describe it to you now with a goofy smile of horny remembrance. “i just want to say that i thought she was great” and awkward nod into a stare at my feet as i walk away.
what do people say at funerals to the parents? is there anything that i shouldnt say? what are these “emotions” that you hyoo-mahns do?
thanks.
all i want is for them to smile, even if it is solely at my awkward attempt at comfort. but ‘your daughter was pretty’… i think that may be the nicest thing they hear all day.
but what if she killed herself… there is no emoticon. i think i might cry if i learn thats what happened.
and i think her parents will ask themselves where i was when this happened if i thought she was so great. and my supposedly good deed will be turned on its head.
if she died last night, and they still dont know why as of one day later, and shes 21 years old, what could have possibly caused it?
I’ve only been to one funeral - of the father of one of my closest friends. It was a surprisingly enjoyable occassion, particularly since my friend insisted on reading the final pages of Camus L’etranger as his message of love and respect for his father. Not a happy book.
I simply told my friend that I was happy to be there for him, I made no particular effort to say something to mark the occassion. No words can really ever sum it up so in a sense everything one could say at a funeral is insulting and futile. As such, try not to worry about offending people. Just be proud and try to affirm life, as ever.
I managed to miss a lot of funerals until I was
36, then I went to a lot of them. After much thought,
I am going to have someone hold an Irish wake for me.
I’ve requested anybody who goes must come out plastered
and secondly no one cries.
Don’t grieve, but celebrate the life. Funerals are way too sad.
First rule of a funeral, no tears. Only laughter. Second rule
only cat stevens songs from “harold and maude”.
That’s it, have fun. That is all I would want.
People have the wrong idea about funerals.
I want to change those ideas.
It really is quite simple. Just say what is in your heart at the moment. Nothing else will matter, and if it comes from the heart, her parents will hear that and accept it. You will have given the best of yourself in that moment, and that is enough.
Try writing a short note or letter before you go, then give it to her mom. That’s what my brother’s GF did at his wake. Words could be painful to say face to face. I never got to read that letter: I didn’t think I could. I would cry.
