This weekend I attended a memorial type party for a very dear friend of mine’s mother who passed away a year ago. She is the first person that I have really known that I have attended any type of memorial for. There was a small rememberance type thing shortly after she died, but there was never a real funeral or memorial service because her husband couldn’t handle it. So after nearly a year to the day her second eldest daughter decided to have a celebration of her life, the way she had wanted.

The rented facility was decorated beautifully, with tables laid out in the departed’s favorite colors, soft music (mostly classic rock) playing, white lights on the ceiling, gorgeous flowers, and a table with candles burning, a small shrine to the Virgin Mary, charms, a sign that said “Hippies use side door”, and other items of the departed’s. It really felt like her. The people who set up did a wonderful job.

There was plenty of food laid out, salads, cold cuts, rolls, fruit, vegetables, cheese… and there were lots and lots of people! The departed had a lot of friends and had known a lot people, and there were a lot of people who felt like they needed some closure that they had been denied a year ago. Everyone was given some time to enjoy the food, then two of the departed’s oldest friends began the “program”.

They started with a prayer, said a few words, then opened the microphone to anyone who wanted to come forward and tell a story about the departed. I was struck as more people went to the microphone how fake so many people sounded as they talked about the departed. A main theme running through the evening was the departed’s faith, making it sound as if she was one of the most devoted Catholics walking the earth. I think her faith may have been very important to her at one time, but not during the last several years of her life. She did love the Virgin Mary very much, the speakers got that much right.

There were a few people who were genuine, but for the most part it was people who were talking about her as though she was some kind of superhuman saint, romanticizing her life, her relationship with her husband, and her faith. There were only a few people who spoke to told stories I identified with, that I thought to myself, ”that sounds like the woman I’d known since I was thirteen or fourteen”.

It wasn’t until hours later, when most of the people had cleared out and we were starting to think about cleaning up that I felt that we were really honoring the departed the way we were supposed to. We turned up the mix of her favorite songs, sang along to Paul Simon, John Couger Mellencamp, and many others, danced, talked, laughed, ate desert…. That was when she was truly honored, not when a priest was speaking and said “She was a grace-filled woman”.

My mom said later that was totally wrong - she was a spirit filled woman. I have one better. She was a life filled woman. She wasn’t a saint, she was a real person, and I don’t think she would have enjoyed being set up on a pedestal.

I remember her as being funny, down to earth, and always welcoming to me and all of her daughters’ friends. I remember having conversations with her in her kitchen, and laughing because she was so damn funny. She could sting wickedly too, and she could be mean. I remember her hideous Virgin Mary bead curtain that she absolutely loved and hung in front of the glass back door, and how her daughter and I laughed about it. I remember her gardens. I remember the fights that she and her husband had. I remember prying up tile floors with her and her daughter when the family bought their new house, and how we actually had fun doing it. I remember her as being a really interesting woman, vibrant, edgy, pragmatic, cranky, down to earth, and although she was a kind person, she would always tell it to you like it was. She didn’t really mince words. I remember a lot about her, good and bad.

That’s how I try to respect and honor her memory the most, by just remembering who she was as a whole, not cutting parts out to make her seem greater than she was. When people do that, when they set her up as a saint and ignore the parts of her that made her human, they do her a disservice. They make her less than what she was.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough about this, so in closing I’ll say one more thing:

I didn’t know her all that well. She was a part of my life for many years because her daughter and I are best friends, but it wasn’t like I was her friend, or I was all that close to her. But I will say that in many, many ways she was a wonderful, loving, virbant human being who continues to inspire me. And I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I hope I never lose sight of every aspect of how I knew her. Good and bad.