Last Saturday, the 5th of July, was my "uncle" Randy's funeral. He died unexpectedly in a motorcycle accident at night. I wasn't really sad or depressed over his passing. Part of it was because I had known him the best when I was a kid and hadn't seen him in a couple years lately.
Uncle Randy was a funny, heart-felt guy. He used try and goat us into believing his crazy stories. "This one time I was having a beer with Santa and the Easter Bunny..." Everyone loved Randy.
I knew he was at peace. I knew he was at heaven. He was a hard-working,devoted guy.
I was actually more concerned about the funeral itself. What the heck are you supposed to wear to a funeral these days? In olden times you were supposed to wear all black (preferably a dress if you were a girl). Now anything goes. It's kind of like going to church -formal wear in general is preferred -not necessarily black -but if you want to wear jeans and a nice shirt that's accepted too. And since this out in the country, I also noticed a lot of bikers wearing leather jackets and sunglasses as well. The "classiest" outfit was a white dress a woman wore that had motorcycle images all over it.
Unsure of what to wear, I decided to stick to the original look -black slacks, black tank-top, black blouse-shall. I ended up being the only person wearing all black. I looked pretty goth actually -especially with my pale complexion. I felt like an idiot.
During the funeral, because we were out in the sun (and I was wearing black and trying to to burn) I ended up standing in the shade of a tree. Unfortunately the sun beat down through the branches anyway. So at one point I decided to close my eyes and try to connect to God. 2 main reasons: 1. To prevent any possible ghosts in the cemetery from attaching themselves to me and 2. To make sure Randy crossed over and found peace.
Something weird happened when I started meditating. The sunlight stopped beating on me. It's like it withdrew or went away. I kept moving around trying to get it to land on me as it had before. There was no breeze or no clouds -no reason for the sun to shift and stop hitting me as it had before. But for some reason after connecting to God the sun didn't hit me and I was left at peace in the shade.
The funeral ended up feeling more like a family reunion. My aunt Deb came down from Oregon. My grandpa and 2 grandmas were there. We ended up going out to lunch together afterwards. The highlight of the funeral is the highlight of any funeral: Hearing people's stories of their experience knowing the person who has just passed away. Only 2 people spoke at the funeral though. So not very many stories were shared. But the photographs at the memorial service said a lot. Pictures of Randy fishing, boating, laughing, drinking beer, and 4 wheeling.
The last thing to note was when my family and I were at the restaurant after the funeral. At one point between my grandma, aunt, and parents speaking, my grandma turned to me and said, "Speak! Why don't you talk???"
It kind of pissed me off. It also happened the weekend before when I was visiting with my step-mom's grandma and sisters. She walked past me and said, "Jessica why are you always so quiet? Say something."
What is it with people getting upset with me for not speaking? Shut Up. I don't bug people when they talk on and on about subjects I have no interest in. Leave Me Alone. I speak when I have something worth saying. In all honesty when I speak just for the sake of speaking I babble on like an idiot and nobody cares what I'm saying anyway.
Embrace the silence. Silence is noise and chaos come to rest in peace. Sometimes when I hear a person speaking -especially if it's loudly -I just end up hearing these reverberations striking my ears. It feels like someone whacking you upside the head with a buzzer. I used to feel bad about being quiet -My Greatest Vice according to most people. Now I've decided to resent those who don't appreciate my great ability to listen, take things in, reflect, and say selectively profound things when needed.
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