Father's Funeral

Sometimes I've tried to imagine what a funeral in our family would be like, based on other funerals I've been to. It was impossible to imagine. Now that I have experienced one first hand I must say, it was nothing like other funerals and very typically Willwerth: chaotic, sad, joyfull, serious, irreverent, full of laughter, tears and love. When the funeral home people came, in their black suits and sober faces to take father away, we had them joking in the space of 5 minutes. When saying goodbye at the crematorium, the funeral director told us that she enjoyed working with us because our family showed so much respect for Father and for each other. She said that is not so common.
Some might think that having a wake in the home would be wierd. What would have been wierd would have been if the family had gathered and father would have been in a cooler somewhere. We felt the need to be near him and it felt good to go about our daily life in the kitchen and living room, knowing that father lay just behind the door in the sunroom and that one could go in to sit with him any time. It was the same room,in which he had lain for the last 2 weeks of his life and where he had died. People came quietly to read for him. Once the monks came and chanted and burned inscense. Another time a woman brought her 2 young children, maybe 7 and 9 years old. The little boy played the violine for father. Ilian who usually lives in Ithaca when she is in the area came out to live at the farm. Mother continued to sleep right outside the room where father lay, as she did when he was alive. It felt right to be near him.
The days leading up to the funeral were incredibly busy. Adam had made a list before going back to Maine to bring back his family, which we divided between us: Ilian organized the picnic (the Willwerths don't do receptions, they do picnics), I wrote the program, the notices for the papers and the inscription for the stone, and Roland laid it all out on the computer, made the web-site and helped mother get the bookkeeping organized. Together we wrote a biography of Father. People brought flowers and food. Thank goodness for the food. We sure didn't have time to cook! Sunday evening the choir director came by and we spent a great hour singing songs and hyms to each other and deciding what to sing at the funeral. We settled on the choir singing 2 and the congregation singing 3. Monday evening the Christian Community priest arrived from Detroit and had a pow-wow with the episcopalian/lutheran pastor of the church where my parents sing in the choir. She had offered the use of the church but was completely unfamiliar with the Christian Community. The meeting went well however and it was agreed that she would read the Scripture at the beginning and speak to the reading at the end.
At 10 am on the day of the funeral the family was gathered in the room where Father lay, for the first part of the funeral. I was serving and as I entered ahead of the priest, I found myself looking for Father in the crowd, before I realized that of course, he wasn't there. Afterwards the funeral people came and closed the coffin and took it to the church. Lots of flowers arrived. It was wonderful to see how many people remembered him and honored him with flowers and cards. It was a beautiful service. The organist played some of the hyms which we had sung at our meeting but not included in the program while people were coming in. Wildflowers were skattered over the coffin. The choir were at their best. Even though we had chosen songs of joy, the opening song "Morning has broken" made me want to cry. I was supposed to say a few words at the end, but it soon became apparent that both priests said almost everything I had to say. So I had to quickly change my speech. I cut out all the preachy stuff, talked about fathers love of music - he had a song for every occasion - and his reverence for the earth and love of animals. I ended by describing the cemetary plot that is waiting for his ashes. A lot of people came to the funeral, people from church, from the waldorf and bio-dynamic movement, people from the food bank, the union where father was a board member until he became ill a year ago, people from the tibetan buddhist monestery, puppet people and neighbors.
After the service we, the closest family accompanied the coffin to the crematorium. They let us come all the way in, let us watch how they put the casket into the incinerator and turned it on. We said the Lords Prayer a final time and then we went home. Again, it felt right to follow his body to the bitter end. Each step along the way was a little heart wrenching, took him a little further, starting with his actual death, then when he was put in the casket, then when he left the house, and finally when they put him in the oven and turned it on. That was as far as one can go, and it enabled us to let go of his body and turn our focus to his spirit, by celebrating his life, with a pot-luck picnic, music, and dancing. It was such a nice gathering, we remembered father, shared food and music and conversation with friends. It was just the sort of picnic that Father has been a part of for so many years!
Adam had to return to Maine the next day. The rest of us will be returning to our homes one by one - Sharon, at the end of the week, Ilian on thursday, I next weekend, and then Roland a week or so after that. Before we go our seperate ways we want to bury the ashes at a natural cemetary. Father's plot is next to a small white pine tree, at the edge of a field of goldenrod, overlooking the valley and hills beyond. The stone is a local field stone and is making the inscription with his name and dates and two lines of a verse in German about resting enclosed by the earth in the knowledge that it is a part of God.