WA 1 Final Draft

There was a point in my early childhood when my grandmother passed away.  I didn’t know her well because my mother didn’t want us to see her.  It wasn’t either of their faults.  My grandmother was insane, legitimately insane; she did things like talk to the radio and play tennis on her couch.  But she died and I didn’t know how to feel about it.  I could tell my mother was sad obviously.  I was sad but not really sad like you should be when you lose a relative.   Its like trying to cry over someone you’ve never heard of dying.  Plenty of people die everyday.  I don’t cry for every one of them nobody does and nobody is even really sad about it. they might say that but really they aren’t.  Anyway the funeral recession was at my mothers’ house.  All these funeral peopled filed in started eating, talking.  Now my grandmother lived in the mountains of Appalachia and so did the people who were currently in my house.  They told each other stories about my grandmother and the room was filled with stimulating conversation and laughter.  I decided not to take part in this laughter seeing as if I couldn’t be sad at this event it would be respectful not to laugh and have a cheerful time.  I decided to sit on one of the folding chairs lining the walls.  Coincidentally I was sitting one chair over from a man who had a blank expressionless face.  He held a cane and wore sunglasses.  I could tell he was blind.   However what I did not know was that he was also the priest of the church that all these people attended.  He said “Hello?” wondering about the sudden noise of me sitting in a chair.  “Hi” I responded.  He continued saying “I don’t recognize your voice.”  I proceeded to tell him that I currently resided in this house and that this was my grandmothers’ funeral.  He said “You don’t seem to sad for one who has just had such a loss.”  I told him that I didn’t know my grandmother well enough to be sad at her death and I thought it would be respectful not to be to happy so here I was talking to him.  “I see.” He said following this statement with a deep ponderous pause. “You know” he finally said, “Do you know why I don’t do funerals?” “Why” I said playing along expecting a typical answer, but to my surprise he returned with. “ Its because I’m never sad.” At a loss for words and my mouth slightly agape he continued, “Is death really that bad?  Either you go to heaven as I know your grandmother would or nothing.  Its just like sleeping now neither one of those is to bad is it.” Without waiting for me to answer he continued.  “So I think you should go and listen to some stories.”  Following his advice I got up with a new understanding of life and death.  I listened to various stories about my grandmother and had an overall good time at the funeral.  I went to bed thinking about this statement neither really was that bad was it?  With that though in my mind I went to bed casting my mind off into a place that really wasn’t that bad.