Well, I managed to avoid the funerals over the past two days however I am feeling a bit guilty about not going on Friday. What do you get when you mix an Italian/Irish Catholic family with Laotian Buddhists for a funeral for someone who didn't want one? Mayhem
The week leading up to the "production" had a lot of shouting between sisters and complaints about the other family (I'm sure on both sides). For someone that wanted no ceremony, he got a full blown sendoff.
I was a bit confused by everything when I found that they were spending $5k on a casket for a guy that was being cremated. That's when I found that Friday was going to be a viewing. I had no interest in seeing him any worse than I had at the end of his fairly young life so I had already decided I didn't want to go to the viewing. However, when I heard they had hired a bagpipe player, I became totally confused. I asked if Friday was a viewing or a memorial service and the gf said viewing which I immediately declined attending.
It turned out to be a memorial service that ran from 7-9, but they started the memorial service at 7, I guess the priest had other things to do. It turned out Justin looked even worse than he did at the end so I'm really glad that wasn't ingrained in my memory banks. I really think an urn with a picture of how one looked in better days makes so much sense.
Then came the Saturday Buddhist ceremony. I didn't get a lot of detail on how that took place other than a few pictures. The one here is of his two sons on Friday night outside the funeral home with the bagpipe being played in the background. The other is from Saturday as his son was converted to a Buddhist monk for the transition.
After the service, they all entered the last bit of drama and trauma. They left the funeral home to the on site crematorium. Where the Buddhists watched the final step. The Buddhists wanted the children to watch. The Italian/Irish (forgot, his father is Jewish) weren't having any of that with a 3, 6 and 10 year old. They withheld the children but the monk came and took the oldest to stand right in the front. Needless to say, that created an issue since he was already upset and after a brief discussion, the Italian's won. It's over, thankfully.
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsbpMJDHKBmDgsMEVdZ4zagpaScmrw