Celebrating at weddings and funerals

I have a friend who jokingly refers to any wedding as a funeral. He says all individual freedom is gone from that point on, when two become as one. Yes, he has “somewhat” of a point.

Love can (and often does) bond two individuals so unspeakably close together that they can both want to act as one, voluntarily giving up many of the individual freedoms they may have once possessed.

Yes, love can do that. And often does.

A couple of years back I drove to the countryside near Greeneville TN and attended the joyous wedding of two former students, Baylee Nave and Jordan Sewell - pictured below. Yes, you read that right. Baylee and Jordan both once sat in my classroom at Van Pelt Elementary. Who would have ever thought I’d be watching them marry each other someday? What an unusually joyous occassion this was for me!

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Almost immediately after their wedding I attended an event for another former student. It was his funeral service. This young man had died by his own hand.

Most of us like to think of ourselves as being logical in our thinking. Yet, being human, we are ruled largely by our emotions, not by logic.

I realize some folks may initially beg to differ, but we have the entirety of human history to show us all otherwise. Collectively and individually, human emotion is (and long has been) both King and Queen to most of our behaviors in this world.

That being noted, I don’t view our all being extremely emotional creatures as a negative thing. Not at all. Quite the contrary, to feel emotion is to be fully alive and fully human to the fullest extent.

Like being in love.

Like feeling grief.

Like feeling gratitude.

To be fully human it matters little what emotion we may feel, as long as we feel.

I used to think (as most young people do) that having your heart broken in a romantic relationship was the most terrible tragedy of utmost proportions possible. Indeed, as I write these words I can count several students who have died at a young age by their own hand - universally due to the breakup of a romantic love relationship.

Romantic love is, as Shakespeare so wonderfully put it, the ultimate “sunshine” of our lives. I am a believer. Aren’t we all?

Age. Time. Wisdom. Eventually these three teach us that love is never lost, even when it seems to be. Love, when real, somehow, some way … lives on.

My favorite verse in all the Good Book is, “God is love.” (And the only one I’ve found that I really need.)

Indeed, love exhibits itself in all its myriad of flavors at weddings and funerals alike.

Gosh, I still love (at least a little) my first girlfriend. I always will (at least a little). And we do well to remember that even a little bit of love is a wondrous and powerful thing.

Without trying very hard at all, I can honestly still feel emotional for every gal I ever loved … even from long ago. Love is still there. This doesn’t make me a polygamist. It simply makes me honest about the joyous feelings I once had (however close to mere embers those feelings may have now faintly waned).

How much better might divorced or estranged couples ultimately feel about each other should they view themselves from this frame of reference, I wonder. Rancor, distrust, and anger are hard (if not impossible) to feel at the same time one is feeling the very powerful emotion of love.

Yes, it is easy for us to feel a sense of joy when we attend weddings. Hope is everywhere in the air.

But at funerals? By that point, isn’t any hope raised in vain?

When I attend a funeral these days, I find myself thinking how honored and glad I was to have known this person, as my life could have been that I had never known them at all. Acknowledging this wondrous fact instills a strong sense of gratitude within me.

I find myself being grateful that the deceased had a chance at life - even if they may have ended their chance early, by their own hand. Who are we to “judge” those who have chemicals in their brain that go awry?

I grieve for them, yes. But I also celebrate the fact that they once lived - and were loved.

I know they were loved because if I am attending their funeral they would have been loved (in some form or fashion) by me. Else I wouldn’t be there, in celebration that they once lived.

While at this young man’s funeral I overheard someone speaking about him with a tone of disgust and disdain, “His life was wasted.” I felt the emotion of anger quickly well up within me. I wanted to look at this someone and ask them who made them God. (Thankfully I somehow restrained those emotions at the moment. But our emotions are healthiest when they can be released somewhere, in some way, so I will mention it here.)

We know so little. Especially when we think we know so much.

If we love with an open mind and heart, we will find that there is much to be grateful about any life. And, therefore, much to be celebrated.

At weddings.

And at funerals.