Giving thanks
By Teresa K. Flatley

We've all said dumb things at wakes and funerals, words we wish we could take back. Often the fear we will repeat our gaffes is enough to keep us from going to the next visitation or funeral, fearing we will dig a larger hole for ourselves (see how easy it is to do?).

Most of the time mourners forget our ill-chosen words; their grief is too all-consuming to allow worry about such trivial things.
But even after attending six funerals this year, I won't forget one comment I heard because it points out our unfortunate tendency to think about "me" first even at a time of someone else's sorrow.

I was sitting in my car in late August with an orange funeral flag stuck on my bumper and my hazard lights flashing, waiting for my turn to pull out into a funeral procession. As I sat there in my car, a young woman ran down the school driveway next to the church toward me as preschool children were being dismissed.

When this young mother came close to my open window, she spoke to another woman standing nearby in a disgusted tone: "What a day for a funeral." Truly, this event did not mesh nicely with her plans for the day.

How rude it was of the deceased woman whose funeral I was attending to die at the beginning of the school year and then have the gall to need a ride to her final resting place, all so she could mess up this young mother's day. Clearly, this younger woman defined the word "self-absorbed."

I was at the funeral because my close friend had, in fact, not been self-absorbed. My friend, a nurse, had been asked several years ago by a church minister to look in on two sisters who were in their late nineties and living alone together.

At the time, things were not going well at the sisters' home. The younger sister had several medical problems which meant that someone had to help her out of bed in the morning, continue her care throughout the day and then help her into bed at night. Obviously, her older sister was no longer up to the task.

My friend spent time with the sisters, serving as nurse, friend and caregiver. When the elder one broke her hip four years ago, the two women were moved to a Kane Regional Center where they received good care and remained till they died.

This day, when I had watched the indignant young mother run towards me, was the second funeral I attended for the sisters.

There were only a handful of us at the service that morning. Not a large group for one who had lived so long, and ultimately, had outlived her contemporaries. Contrasted with the other funerals I attended this year, this was the smallest, the one it would have been easiest to justify not attending. It's often too easy to accept those first thoughts we have when we find out someone has died: "I hardly knew the woman." "I'm too busy, I can't fit it in." "Do I have to do something?" "Who's gonna know if I don't show up?"

Well, my friend would know if I had come to the funeral and so I went. If she could give of herself like the Good Samaritan, it was a small effort for me to go and bid farewell to this woman who had been part of her life. And don't we all deserve to have someone there at the end to send us off with a prayer?

My friend was given the older woman's belongings to take home and sort through. Some of her things will go to charities; much will be thrown away. Her wheelchair will be used by someone else soon, I'm sure. After years of taking care of the sisters' affairs, planning birthday celebrations for them and decorating their room for Christmas, this will be a small job for my friend, but again, one that needs doing.

If the sisters could, they would tell my friend, a stranger who came into their lives when they needed someone and stood by them till the end, how grateful they were. They would have included her in their prayers this Thanksgiving because it's often the gestures we make when we don't have to that matter the most.