I hate funerals. Thinking about it, I don't know anyone who doesn't. It's a ceremony of melancholy and that's one emotion I just can't deal with. But I went to my grand-aunt's funeral yesterday. Although we weren't close (I've only met her twice), she's still family. It was a funeral like any other; tears, sadness, a sermon about this life being only temporary. When the ceremony was done, I called up my partner-in-crime, who was off work, and we went to the movies. Was I tactless to do this?
I mean one minute I'm comforting a weeping cousin and the next I'm on the first bus home hoping that I make it to the movies on time. A friend to whom I relayed these concerns assured me that I was well within my rights-- after all this relative and I had next to no contact with each other--but I couldn't help but wonder about it. It's not just going to the movies after a funeral I'm wondering about but also going to a rave, a romantic dinner.or any other enjoyable event.
However, when I really think about it, my absence would have changed nothing, of that I'm aware but I don't want my family to think that I don't care. My aunt has been dead two weeks and during that time I've been comforting and consoling whoever needed it. And furthermore, the funeral was already done when I left, I didn't slip out after the sermon. I don't particularly enjoy standing in the cemetery being roasted by the sun while cement creates a prison for a body that was once full of life. The way I see it, catching a movie after a funeral is no different than going to a wake. Wakes in the Caribbean are an orgy of drinking and dirty jokes, from my recollection, so my alcohol-free viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean is hardly that bad.
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