Ob-la-di. Ob-la-da...

I sat on a broken-down flesh-toned sofa with a low back and cushions so squishy I felt my butt hit the springs as I lowered myself on to the furniture.  The pastor began his sermon, and as he droned on about mountians and holy beings and psalmists, I stared at the floor.  I let my eyes cross as each carpeted square morphed in and out of my line of vision.  I didn't want to listen. I didn't see myself as really sitting at the funeral of a man, not aged 28 years who had ended his life along with his wife in such a dramatic fashion that left a child of fifteen months orphaned. 

A woman with short dark hair and high-water pants up to her knees pulled a palm pilot from the depths of her Kmart handbag.  She nodded as the pastor talked about redemption and put the tip of the stylus in her mouth.  For ten minutes my eyes could focus upon nothing else but this orally fixated woman.  

The small wooden and leather chairs lined up behind the pews like soldiers for battle.  They creaked and groaned as people shifted in their seats and burdened the small chairs with their physical and emotional burdens.  

I hate funerals for the reason that they rarely celebrate the person's life and that they always bring our own mortality under a microscope.