Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul

Another day, another funeral. I don’t remember where I first heard that line or even who said it. Heck, maybe no one said it. Maybe I just made it up and don’t realize that I can take credit for it. It doesn’t matter all that much.

In a couple of hours I will be heading off to another funeral. A dear friend’s father has passed away and so I will join the community and do what I can to try and help his family ease the pain.

I got the news not long after I completed the post about my parents purchasing their plots. You could call it odd coincidence because the reality is that people do pass away each day. I don’t mean to make light of this or to sound callous. You can attribute some of this to the poor mood I am in.

It is Elul and it has its own impact upon me. I remember being quite little and learning about the so called book of life, judgement being rendered upon who would live and who would die. It has stuck with me, or should I say that I have always wondered about a couple of things.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the question of why people would die so close to Rosh Hashanah. For some reason the idea that they fell short of seeing another new year bothers me. I don’t know why. If they would have lived just a couple of days beyond the new year I would feel better.

I don’t know why this bothers me. I can’t quite put my finger upon it, but it does. I feel edgy and unsettled.

A number of years ago I considered how many of my friends had already lost a parent. There were quite a few. By the time I was 21 I knew more than a half dozen whose mother or father had died. I don’t know if that really is all that unusual, but it seemed like a lot.

Now at the age of 37 it is not so uncommon. Today I’ll stand at the grave and look around. The strange thing is that as we age I see us all beginning to look more like our parents. There are a few more wrinkles and streaks of gray in hair and beards.

Later on at the house we’ll form small groups and discuss the state of affairs and I know that part of that conversation will include talking about life insurance and how we are trying to protect our children’s futures, just in case.