Guilty For Living Well

So, I decided to go to my friend Petro's funeral yesterday.  Even though I didn't know him very long, I wanted to go for a couple of reasons.  One, I had checked out his My Space page after I found out about his death.  Though he hadn't logged in since early October 2009 - he had become a fun fixture on

Facebook, and now his Facebook page has become a very loving memory wall, with quotes, memories and photos keeping it an active place -  I realized that, of all of the amazing people he had known and loved in his lifetime, I was in his "top ten" friends!  What a strange, time-of-the-century honor!

Also, I had the day free to go, and I was able to run a couple of errands in the city before the funeral.  I don't get down there very often.  Mostly,  I wanted to go to support my gal friend, blues singer, Pam, who was very close with Petro and would have had to go alone.  It was a good thing I did, because only one member of the Yurt band attended, the rest of the packed church was family and past friends we did not know.  The rest of the Yurt Band, apparently, were "boycotting" the funeral, because they knew Petro would have been against that kind of service.

However, as Pam noted, though Petro would have no doubt poo pooed the Catholic service, it is important for the family, and especially the mother.  Pam and I were two of the last people to arrive in the church, so we ended being seated in the third row of pews, just behind the family.  There I was, two rows back from the poor sobbing mother, flanked by her two distraught but supportive daughters, as well as his son and daughter and various nieces and nephews.  All I could see was the back of the mother's head, but it was bowed down the entire time.  She must have been in her late eighties or early nineties.  Very sad to see.

Religiously, I was raised "nothing" (though my folks are Unitarian Universalists), so anytime I go to a Catholic church, I am perplexed and slightly amused.  It pretty much looked exactly like that photo I googled above.  Most of the time was spent reading off various prayers.. there was not much personal said.  When the priest finally did stand up behind his speaking spot to say a few personal words, I thought it was really strange how he kept alluding that Petro was now going to be absolved of all his sins.  What? What sins?  So the guy smoked, drank, swore, had many lovers and god knows what else, but his life was not sin.  To me, sin is a person who manifests pain, hate, murder.. that kind of stuff.  Petro was a glowing aura of goodness, day in and day out.  He left everyone he met feeling loved and special.  What is this sin this priest is prattling on about?

Then, after his short speech, basically making nobody, especially the grieving mother, feel any better about Petro's passing, snarky Priest spent the rest of the hour with his back turned to us, rattling away a bunch old prayers.  First we stand, then we sit, then stand, then sit, then stand, then sit.. oy.  Finally, he has his guys change him into a different robe, and he brings out some water and sprinkles it all over the coffin.  Then he lights some sage or something and waves smoke all over the coffin. I guess that meant now that Petro was "absolved of his sins" and could go and hang with God.  I guess. Like, he was cleared by the secret service and could now go have a beer with the president.  Usually I'm a sobbing mess at any funeral, even ones in movies or television shows, but the only time I really shed a tear was when the hearse guys came and they rolled the coffin down the center aisle to be taken to the hearse.  That's when I realized Petro's body really was going, going, gone.

However, the real celebration of his life takes place this Saturday, up at a funeral home near his house, and will then be continued on, late into the wee hours of the next day, no doubt, at his home.  After the first hour at the funeral home, I'm sure most of the family will have gone home by then, and that will leave his true family, his friends.. the Yurt Band, Pammie, his ex wife, all the musician's he has befriended and taken great photos of over the years, to party like Petro would have wanted.  None of this stuffy, make you feel guilty for being alive crap!  Carry on dear Petro! You will live on in our hearts and souls forever!