Orders of Magnitude

If there are 6000 funerals a day in the United States, and two people fly to each one, and there are about 500,000 domestic plane trips made per day with 200 people per plane, then on every plane there should be at least one person flying to a funeral. And that was me, Sunday night, Monday morning and today.

I feel like my head is stuffed with jello-cool whip-fruit and pasta-mayo-mayo. I don’t usually do extended crying jags when I’m alone, but seeing someone else break down always sets me off as well. And when you’re at the funeral of a man with ten kids, there’s always someone else breaking down. We’re talking prolonged dehydration here; why don’t they serve Gatorade at these things? Or perhaps some warm Pedialyte would be more appropriate, given the weather.

I’d never been to a funeral before; I had no idea they involved so much trekking about in the snow. There’s the bit at the funeral home, to pray a full rosary before closing the casket; then there’s the bit at the church, with the standing around outside so you don’t go in before the pallbearers; and of course the interment, which amounted to two breath’s worth of “we’re dust amen go in peace.” I guess they don’t make winter vestments like they used to. All of this was sandwiched by the funeral director trying to herd our cars into an orderly procession – and when I say orderly, I mean the guy managed to line all ten kids up in birth order, a feat I have not been able to accomplish in 21 years of living in this family. It was impressive. However, I must insist that when I die, my funeral procession should be an unruly mob running behind my kindle-wood coffin, torches and pitchforks optional.

Yeah. It’s been intense. I need a shower; I can’t quite believe that I have class tomorrow.

Good night.

Comments

  1. des wrote:

    Poor you.

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