Seriously?!

Funeral Cheese

Does it make me a bad person that I think Jeremy would have laughed at the way his funeral was conducted?

First of all, do all these ministers/ funeral officiants take a class Sonorous Funeral Voice 101? The whole time the minister was speaking I kept think about how insincere he sounded.

Second, who picked the music? Wildly inappropriate. Guitarisma2 Blood? Like that's the last song you want to hear to remind you that Jeremy's "in a better place"? It sounded like Satan's wedding march!

Third, the dove release. The ultimate in funeral cheese. I think that would have put Jeremy over the edge. No matter what the minister said, at that moment Jeremy wasn't smiling down on us, he was laughing his fucking ass off.

I do think he would have been very pleased by all the things his friends had to say and their memories of him that they shared. Playing the guitar, working in the pressroom, hiking, hanging out playing video games, watching the Timberwolves, the fact that he was slow to anger and quick to laugh, how strong he was, how much his family and his brothers meant to him, the time he destroyed his new $1200 mtn bike in less than 24 hours, building a potato gun, laughing when shortly after BrianF. (J-9s bro) burned his eyebrows off in a freak potato gun accident...

That's the stuff that made me cry.

Nate was there, which surprised me. He didn't look so good, but then I probably wouldn't either if I'd spent the last week in the psych ward under suicide watch. He was so pale and fragile and his suit just kind of hung there, like he'd borrowed it from someone several sizes larger than himself. He could barely stand on his own and had to be supported most of the time by his dad, who tucked Nate protectively under his arm like a little kid. As though we, in our grief and our anger, might throw stones at his son.

When they were entering the funeral home where every one was seated Nate completely broke down, physically and mentally. His father and two of his cousins had to practically carry him into a side room until he could pull it together enough to walk down the isle to a seat in the front. Even then he couldn't look up from the floor. The whole time during the funeral and after, Nate clutched a green book with gold lettering on the cover like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world and without it he might just float up and up and up... wouldn't let go even when his father tried to take it from him. At first I thought it was a Bible. But I don't think it was. It was hard covered and look sort of like a hymnal. But it wasn't that either. Whatever it was, he held onto it like it was the only thing that still mattered.

Even then I don't know how aware Nate was of what was going on. I don't think I've ever seen anyone that grief-stricken. He's lost. You can see it in his eyes. I just hope he can eventually find his way back from the dark place. One thing I do know is that seeing Nate like this would break Jeremy's heart.