- Robert St. John says that while his friend doesn’t like that someone died, he likes what happens when people gather afterward—the stories, the support, and the way a community comes together around a family that needs it.
I have a friend who likes funerals.
That got my attention when he said it last week while eulogizing his mother. He spent more than a decade as a pastor, so he has been to more funerals than most.
He said he likes funerals because people gather to remember the best parts of a person. They tell the funny stories, the sweet stories, and the stories no one else in the room has heard. They also show up for the family when the family needs them most.
I had never thought about funerals that way. I’ve been to several lately, including two in the past week, and his words have stayed with me. Like most people, I’ve always thought of funerals as something you get through.
You stand in the visitation line and try to find the right words. There usually aren’t any, so you say, “I’m sorry,” hug the family, and hope your presence says the rest.
I’ve had a longtime rule about neckties: You have to be wed or dead before I put one on. These days I’m wearing one for the second reason more often than I’d like.
I suppose that’s part of being 64. The people who raised us, taught us, coached us, and occasionally straightened us out are getting older, and so are we.
In the Deep South, we have our own way of handling death. We pray, we cry, we tell stories, and we feed enough people to cover half the county.
The old saying is there are two certainties in life—death and taxes. Down here, there’s a third. If somebody dies, food is coming.
Somewhere, a Southern woman has already pulled a Pyrex dish out of a cabinet. She’s sitting on G and waiting on O. I wrote about funeral food years ago, and I still believe there is something in the DNA of Southern women that tells them exactly what to do when someone dies.
There is no meeting, no email, and no group text. One woman fries chicken, another makes potato salad, and somebody handles dessert. There is always one woman who knows what everyone else is bringing and keeps the operation from collapsing under the weight of too many casseroles and not enough pound cake.
Nobody elected her. She simply arrives with complete authority, yellow legal pad in hand, and starts recording who brought what. No one is foolish enough to question her decisions regarding deviled eggs.
Men don’t have it.
Years ago, a friend of mine learned that a coworker’s spouse had died. He knew food was somehow involved in the Southern funeral process, so he stopped by the drug store, bought a sympathy card, and tucked a Subway gift certificate for an Italian BMT inside it.
He wasn’t trying to be funny. Somebody had died, the family needed food, and Genoa salami, ham, and pepperoni seemed like a reasonable answer. Somewhere between fried chicken and green bean casserole, his brain made a hard right turn and landed at Subway.
Southern women understand this better than most men ever will. The food isn’t really about the food. It’s one less decision for a family to make on a day when they already have more than they can handle.
Someone shows up with a casserole covered in aluminum foil, hands it over, hugs the family, and leaves. There is no speech and no need for one. The food says enough.
Funerals also bring people back into your life, at least for an afternoon. You look across the room and see an old classmate, former neighbor, coach, cousin, or someone you once saw every week but haven’t seen in 20 years.
You hug and pick up a conversation that may have stopped sometime around 1996. In five minutes, you cover most of what has happened since then. Before leaving, one of you says, “We need to get together.”
Both people mean it. Then work gets busy, the calendar fills up, and a few weeks turn into a few years.
Too often, the next time you see that person is in another church, standing in another visitation line. None of us knows when the next time will be. It may be at somebody else’s funeral, or it may be at ours.
My friend said funerals give people a chance to remember the best of a person. No one stands up and talks about the bad day somebody had in 1984 or an argument that went on too long. They talk about the time someone drove across town, sat in a hospital room, brought supper, or showed up when things were falling apart.
At his mother’s funeral, my friend and his brother both talked about her prayer life. More than anything else, that was what they remembered. She prayed for her family, her friends, and countless people who probably never knew someone was praying for them.
She was a woman who prayed. I’m not sure there is much better that can be said about a life.
There has always been more laughter at the Southern funerals I’ve attended than someone from outside the region might expect. Someone tells a story that sounds so much like the person that the room breaks out laughing. A family member says, “He would have loved that,” or, “She would be mad we told that story,” and everyone knows it is true.
The laughter isn’t out of place. Everyone in the room knows the story is dead-on.
My friend doesn’t like that someone died. He likes what happens when people gather afterward—the stories, the support, and the way a community comes together around a family that needs it.
For a little while, a community acts like a community.
My friend didn’t change my mind about funerals. He changed my mind about what they’re for.
I still intend to follow my necktie rule—you’re going to have to be wed or dead before I put one on—and I’m hoping there are more weddings in my future than funerals.
But I think I finally understand why he likes them.
Onward.
This Week’s Recipe: Potato Salad
Ingredients
6 cups Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into a large dice
3 quarts Water
2 tsp. Salt
2 cups Mayonnaise
1 /2 cup Yellow mustard
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp Cider vinegar
1 tsp White pepper
1 1 /2 tsp Black pepper, fresh ground
2 tsp Salt
1 cup Green onion, chopped
1 cup Red bell pepper, small dice
1 cup Celery, small dice
4 Eggs, hard-boiled and chopped
1 /4 cup Sweet pickle relish
Instructions
Place potatoes and salt in water and simmer on low heat until potatoes are tender. Drain and allow to cool.
Combine the first 7 ingredients to form a dressing. Add potatoes and all other ingredients to the dressing and mix well. Yield: two quarts
Robert St. John
