Winging My Dad's Celebration Of Life

My father died suddenly.

It wasn’t drawn out as is the case so often.

He went to the doctor with cold symptoms.

He left the hospital in a box.

But that’s not what this story is about.

On the day of the memorial service, or “A celebration of life” as it’s referred to these days, family members were to go up in front of the gathered friends and talk about Terry.

My father was a minister, so it was held at his church. A small church that on its better Sundays had a few dozen people in pews.

For the celebration of life, there were over four-hundred people in attendance. Some had to watch it on CCTV in the basement.

As the kid that went to film school, I was in charge of splicing together a memorial video. Basically, a slide-show of Terry’s biggest hits, set to U2.

I can’t listen to U2 now.

We decided my contribution was the video, so the other family members would go up and speak.

My younger sister went up in front of the gathering. Then my oldest.

Deep inside, my chest pulled. My heart slapped my brain awake.

I couldn’t let a video be my contribution.

So before my mother could go up, I waved her off and took the podium.

I had nothing planned.

I had no clue what to say.

So I winged it.

I told the gathering of people I had nothing planned to say.

They all laughed.

It wasn’t a joke.

But dear God did that laugh help.

So I closed my eyes, raised my foot over the cliff edge, and stepped.

As a kid, I played baseball. I loved baseball. Above all other sports, it was the sport I enjoyed the most. During one game, I might have been 14 or so at the time, I struck out. Terrible pitch to strike out on. One of those frustration swings. Walking back to the dugout I threw my bat at the fence.

The umpire gave me a warning.

My dad gave me much more than that.

He told me that he was disappointed in me. Not because I was upset or that I struck out. Not even because I threw my bat. But because I showed disrespect to the other team, my own, and myself.

He said if I didn’t have someone’s respect, I didn’t have anything.

Respect

At this point, I made some kind of a joke to the people listening to me. I can’t remember what I said.

Nobody laughed.

Marooned on an island, I could feel everyone drifting away.

There wasn’t anything else I could do but continue.

My dad might have been a minister, but he taught world religion courses at several local colleges. He didn’t teach the classes to convert but to educate. He taught them to respect their ideas. To respect them as people. Because if you couldn’t respect someone who was different, you didn’t have anything.

Respect.

I went on to tell the gathering that a few days earlier I had watched a travel show, where the host was in Bali and stumbled upon a large parade. People were singing and holding flowers and carrying gifts. When the host asked his tour guide about the parade, the guide said it was, in fact, a funeral. But in Bali, they didn’t cry about death. They celebrated life.

A true celebration of life.

I told the glossy eyes and the wet cheeks looking back at me that it was my father’s lesson on respect, and the respect of other ideas, that we should all embrace. Because if the people on the other side of the globe who didn’t believe in the Christian sense of afterlife could truly celebrate life, shouldn’t we all be the same?

I’m sure I fumbled through a few more words and sat down.

Talking at a funeral is one of the strangest public speaking engagements anyone can have. Because there’s no beginning. There’s no ending. There’s no ah-ha moment or round of applause at the end. There’s a laugh here. Silence there. And a return to the seat.

I thought that was my end of the story.

I was wrong.

About two years later I visited a friend in Australia. Flew into Darwin and drove through many of the national parks in the Northern Territory.

The thing is, visiting Australia is expensive. At the time, the US dollar to Australian dollar was about on par, but the Australian minimum wage was like $18. So a sandwich and Coke at Subway was costing over $20. It was actually cheaper to hop on a plane and fly north up to Indonesia and Bali.

My friend and I were wandering the streets one day when we reached an intersection and couldn’t pass.

There was a funeral walking past. With people singing and dancing and sharing gifts and handing out flowers. There was clapping. There was hugging.

A tear ran down my cheek. But it wasn’t a sad tear. It was a knowing one.

My friend asked me what was the matter.

I told her.

A celebration of life.