The Orphan’s Guide to Funerals

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Suggested listening: Lucky Chops' "Hello"


The thing you don’t expect when you lose a parent early in life is that you become fluent in funerals.


And when you lose that second parent, it feels like going from fluency to an unwanted tenured professorship in grief.


And when all of that loss happens in the South, punctuated by other losses, you can’t help but start racking up helpful hints and strengthening your syllabus to better steer your fellow mourners.


Or, at least, this native Southerner can’t.  Bless all of our hearts.


Yes, this originally came out of the cringe-worthy, comical, very real things that happened at or around the services of people I loved. (Pro tip: No one should be patting anyone’s tummy at a wake.)


And it probably also originally came with a good amount of exasperation, probably a dash of biterness, and more than a few eye rolls. (Pro tip: Don’t give copies of your self-published book to the grieving widower.)


But underneath all that - with a little time and a lot of therapy - I hope what exists the most now, what is foundational, is love. 


Love for people who are doing the backbreaking, heart-wrenching, world-churning work of grief, and love for the rest of us flopping around aimlessly and believing the lie that we’ve got to do or say that one right thing.


Let’s dive into that mess over the next few days, shall we?



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