A consequence of growing older is knowing more people who are coming to the end of their lives. Still, it seemed I went to more than my fair share of funerals this year.

Funerals are interesting affairs. They are part reunion, part tribute. They can be sad, but sometimes other emotions well up. Old family battles can be revisited, old friendships rekindled, new friendships begin -- and new battles. You may find strength and competence in someone unexpected. Another you always relied on may fall apart. What you remember about the departed person may not be at all what you expected or even what anyone e1se remembers.

My uncle died in the spring. He wasn't famous like one of the people whose funeral I attended later in the year. He wasn't rich like the man whose loved ones I recently comforted. His casket was decorated with handmade tokens from his grand and great grand children. His wife, my aunt, was supported by her two eldest sons. In their fifty-year marriage my aunt and uncle had never spent more that the few nights apart. On a table in the funeral home was the strangely Pagan symbol: antlers from a great buck he had hunted, a token of his favorite past time.
The funeral home had to be opened out into one vast L-shaped room to hold all the mourners and family. I had driven two hours on a work day with almost no warning to be there. The funeral procession was miles long. The cemetery was far out in the country on a long muddy road. We stood sinking into the cold, soggy ground of the graveyard hugging our coats around us against the biting wind. The grave was on a hill top, and a bird sang and sang.

Why had so many come under such adverse conditions to bid this man farewell? He was a farmer, a sometimes factory worker. His home was among the last in his county to have electricity. Not rich nor famous nor even particularly successful by usual standards. What made him so loved? My uncle in his entire life never raised his voice to anyone. What ever he had, however little, he shared. He loved his children absolutely, and they loved him. That was all. It was enough.

The funeral is a way of saying good bye to the worldly remains of your friends and family, but Samhain is when you really take care of unfinished business, and there always is some. I look forward to Samhain this year. I want to tell Uncle Howard I remember him and, like all his family, I miss him.