Funeral Lessons: Things You Learn or Relearn When a Close Loved One Dies

Monday and Tuesday nights of this week, I slept in our family farmhouse alone. It’s the first time in my long life I’ve done that. That house was built early in 1954, and ever since my parents have lived in it, never venturing away for more than a day or so. They were the ultimate homebodies. Over the years, whenever I visited them, I never needed to call ahead to see if they would be at home.

They were always home. Always.

Now, the house is empty.

Dad died in November of 2007; Mom died last Saturday, June 2, 2012.

Mom and Pop are united in Heaven. They each lived past their 95th birthday, and Mom almost made it to 96. Longevity is a good thing if you get the living part right. They aced it.

Tuesday, we had Mom’s funeral. Her casket sat at the foot of the church altar just as her youngest son Charlie’s had in April 2006 and Pop’s did 18 months after that.

The same three preachers did Mom’s funeral as did Pop’s (Pastor Mickey Crane, my brother Ron, and I). The songs were different, and maybe the scriptures. But the congregation was much the same.

It felt like the second verse of the same song.

This Thursday morning, lying awake in bed when I wish I could have been sleeping, I thought of lessons you learn or get reinforced in family funerals that you might otherwise miss. I came up with 12; there are probably 500.


1. Family roots and traditions are to be prized.

Mom and Dad met at this church–New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, Nauvoo, Alabama–on a Saturday night in 1930. It was her family church going back generations. When she went to Heaven Saturday, Mom was its oldest member.

Most of my siblings came to know the Lord in this church. For Patricia and me, that was the revival in the summer of 1951.

Just across the road from the church, the field which they turned into a cemetery a generation ago used to contain a dim path. In the mid-1940s, our family walked to church through the woods and across that very field.

We have memories of every inch of this region. Driving from the church to our farmhouse, we cover the ground Dad and Mom walked while courting in the early 1930’s. Pop told us of the time he was wearing a shining white suit–apparently they did that a lot back then, something about it being cool–when a truck went by and splashed mud all over him. He called that driver names he had to repent of at church and never forgot it. It was funny only in the retelling.

Throughout the congregation at the funeral, there are people I barely know (I moved away just after high school and have not lived closer than 60 miles since) but, if we were to pursue it, we would discover we are cousins at the third or fourth or fifth levels. That’s what happens when people live in the same community a century or more.

2. A loving church family makes all the difference in the world.

Mickey Crane has pastored New Oak Grove for 35 years. He and my brother Ron and I did the funerals of my McKeever grandmother in 1982 and for our dad, as well as for Mom.

We tease Brother Mickey that Mom always thought he was one of her sons. He seems to like that. It’s true.

This church rallies around its members when they need prayer, go to the hospital, or have a death. Tuesday, prior to the announced visitation time, our family was treated to a meal as lavish as anything King David ever enjoyed. They do this every time there’s a funeral in the church. Patricia is the only sibling still in New Oak Grove, and I suppose she has prepared meals for a hundred funerals or more. Tuesday, the meal was for her.

3. Death comes to everyone, no matter who they are.

No respect of persons. Appointed unto man once to die and after that judgement. The death rate is still the same: 100 percent.

You’ve heard all that. But it’s true.

If you have cancer or a baby or a loved one in jail, people feel for you and care, but they don’t all understand. When it comes to death, however, it’s another story. We have all been to funerals and cemeteries, and we’re not finished going.

William Saroyan, best-selling author of the mid-20th century, said something to the effect that, “I always knew people age and die, but somehow I thought an exception would be made in my case.” He left us in 1983.

Ray Bradbury, the science Fiction author, died the day we buried Mom.

A few feet from Mom and Dad’s plot is a grassy section containing a small marble square stuck down deep. It carries my initials: JNM. My brother Ron called a few years ago and said, “Shall we reserve you some spaces?” Sure. Why not.

I showed that to my sons Neil and Marty and said, “That’s where you will lay me.”

Gruesome? Only to those who think they will actually be residing in that hole in the ground. I do not think that for a minute. I will be somewhere, but not there.

Say of me what the angel spoke about Jesus: “You seek the place where they laid him? Right over there. But don’t bother looking. He is not there. He is risen.” (My version of Matthew 28:6.)

4. The greatest comfort for the grieving is the promises of God.

People hug, they weep with you, they send flowers and bring meals. They drive long distances to share these few hours with you. And you appreciate that as much as you ever have appreciated anything.

But the only thing that reaches down inside–all the way inside–is the Word and Presence of the Lord.

As the Apostle Paul said, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are pitiful creatures” (I Corinthians 15:19).

When my brother Ron stood to speak at the funeral, I was surprised by the Scripture he chose. He spoke of the time in David’s life when the Amalekites raided the Israeli town where David’s family was staying. “They burned the city and took captive all who were in it.” Scripture says, “When David and his men came to the city, and saw it was burned with fire and their wives and sons and daughters had been taken captive, then they lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep” (I Samuel 30:1-4).

Ron said, “I have wept so much over my mama’s death until sometimes you reach the point that there are no more tears.”

Even that ministered to me. I thought once more how appropriate God’s Word is for every moment in this life.

Psalm 17:15 speaks to me as well as anything in the Word. “As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake.”

And Psalm 23:6. “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” When Jesus spoke of that promise in John 14, He added, “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

5. The touch of a friend brings wonderful comfort, too.

I was surprised and blessed by a number of friends and relatives who drove long distances to this funeral when all they could do once they arrived was to give us a hug, a friendly word, and sit through the service for an hour.

You never forget such love.

There is such strength in the presence of a friend even when he/she does nothing except sit in the room with you. It’s been said that Job’s three friends did their best work when they sat with him for a solid week before opening their mouths and undoing all the healing effect their presence had brought.

6. Has anyone ever figured out why flowers inspire us so?

Now, I confess to not caring much for the artificial flowers which seem to grow everywhere in the rural Alabama countryside. (I say that facetiously. We see them on graves all the time. This is just a little personal hangup of mine. I’ll take the flowers God made, not the plastic imitations.)

When I was pastoring, I offended the florists once by urging people not to send flowers–which would last only a couple of days and then be gone–but to do something more valuable with their memorials, such as buy Gideon Bibles and give to worthy charities and ministries in the name of the deceased. One of our church members, a florist, called. “Thanks a lot, preacher,” he said. He was upset. “You’ve just hit my business a good blow.”

I still believe what I said then, but I also know the value of flowers and have sent my share of them over the years.

I hope someone got a picture of one of the arrangements near the head of Mom’s casket. Patricia and Mom used to joke about how they seem to have devoted their lives to cooking. Mom said, “You can just put some pots and pans on my tombstone.” We laughed, but Trish did it this week.

Somewhere, she had bought some tiny pots and pans–maybe 3 or 4 inches across–which the florist worked into the floral display. They were gorgeous and not gaudy, but you would have had to know the point to appreciate why they were there.

We walked around reading cards on the flowers, and remarking on how kind of this one or that group to send these and how beautiful they were. You don’t forget this.

Such flowers will live in our memories and our hearts a long time, and not just for 2 days.

7. During a funeral, the music (hymns, solos, etc) says so much that is otherwise unspeakable.

We began the funeral with my cousin Johnny Kilgore, retired minister of music from Birmingham’s Ridgecrest Baptist Church, playing “When They Ring Those Golden Bells.” Later, he and his wife Pat did a medley of gospel songs which Mom would have loved. At the end of the service, my brother-in-law James Phelps led the congregation in “Mom’s favorite song, ‘What a Meeting in the Air.” It’s a spirited, victorious gospel song, full of joy and assurance with which to walk across the road to the cemetery.

We pastors say the funeral is for the living, but that’s not entirely true. Most of the services I attend, the music chosen tends to be favorites of the deceased. In 2006, when Charlie was buried, I can still hear the Vince Gill classic “Go Up High Upon the Mountain.” It was one of Charlie’s favorites, and I never hear it without thinking of him.

Our dear friend James Allen from Columbus, Mississippi, made the two-hour drive to be with us. James is organist at First United Methodist in Columbus and has been professor of music at Mississippi University for Women for decades. At my request, he stepped to the piano and played a Bach favorite, “Gesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” So precious.

8. Funerals are expensive, so plan ahead.

Since we knew Mom was nearing the end, my sister Carolyn and brother Ron visited funeral homes in a 30 mile radius to compare facilities, services, and prices. The one they chose was excellent, and if I recall correctly, something like $1,000 below the others.

At the cemetery, the headstone was already in place, put there actually before Pop died. In fact, I took his picture standing beside the large tombstone with his name. (Again, gruesome? We didn’t think so. We knew where Pop was going to spend eternity, and it was not in a hole in the ground.

9. Big families are the best, except for one thing.

My Mom was the 6th of 9 children born to Virge and Sarah Kilgore, but she outlived them alll. Her youngest brother Cecil died just a few weeks earlier.

The best thing about large families is the loving fellowship. They nurture each other and see one another through crises, they rally around the one having trouble, and band together as protectors and defenders. But the worst part of having a large family is someone has to go to all the others’ funerals.

Someone has to be the one to turn out the lights. And in our case, that was Mom.

There are five of us left in the family now, all of us in our 70s. In God’s own timing, one by one, we will leave too. It’s the natural order of things, and we would not have it any other way, as painful as the departures and separations are.

10. Funerals make you examine what you really believe.

I find myself returning frequently to the question raised and answered by Simon Peter. As the Lord watched the multitudes drifting away, not caring for some of the more difficult aspects of His teaching, He turned to the apostles. “Well, how about you? Will you go away also?” Simon Peter, the one given to opening mouth and inserting foot, got one right this time. “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66ff)

No one I know of likes to think of dying. In saying we do not fear death–as I’m often wont to do on these pages–I am not saying we understand everything about the subject or that it does not sometimes frighten us. Death is akin to the bee that has lost its stinger and can no longer hurt you, but is still flying around and frightening everyone.

We see what death does, the pain it inflicts, and the grief it leaves in its wake, and we think about the time when our bodywill be lying in a casket similar to that one. And we wonder.

This is all about faith. As confident and certain as the strongest disciple of Jesus Christ wants to be, it’s still about faith. After all, “Why does one also hope for what he sees?” (Romans 8:24) We’re still in the hoping and believing and faithing period.

It all comes down to Jesus Christ. Either you believe Him or you don’t. It’s that simple. And I choose to believe Him. “He alone has the words of life.”

He guaranteed His promises by His own death, burial, and resurrection.

11. Death must not be that difficult or scary; some of the best people we know have done it.

My Mama is there, with my Daddy and two brothers, including one I’ve never met. My uncles and aunts and grandparents, and friends galore. My brother Ron said yesterday, “I have more friends in Heaven than I do here.”

Jesus did it. And He’s there, waiting to receive His own.

12. We are not to focus on death, but on living.

My parents used to say they never planned on living that long, and never even gave it any thought. They just lived each day, taking it as it came, and eventually, the days mounted up into years and they amassed almost a century each.

That’s the right way.

We must not focus on death and become obsessed by it.

But neither should we deny it, give no thought to it, or make no plans for it.

Recently, my wife and I began making plans for longterm health care insurance in case either or both of us should ever need to go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. It makes good sense.

If it makes sense to prepare for the possibility of living two or three or four years in an institution for the feeble elderly and to make arrangements for the eventuality, it makes far greater sense to prepare for what happens next. After death.

Our friend Jerry Clower, the wonderful Mississippi comedian and godly brother in Christ, used to say, “There’s only one place in the universe where there is no laughter and I’ve made arrangements to miss it.” He would not be going to hell, but to the Father’s House.

The wisest man and woman are the ones who have made arrangements for their dwelling after this life.

Jesus anticipated a day when He would pronounce judgement on the righteous faithful: “Come, you blessed of the Father. Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34) That’s the Father’s House.

I walked through the old farmhouse several times this week and thought of when we built it in the early 1950s. I was a young teenager. My dad’s fingerprints are on every board, every tile. He built it for his large, growing family.

Now, Dad and Mom dwell in a house built for them by the Heavenly Father. It’s a far grander house, more than they ever imagined or dreamed.

9 thoughts on “Funeral Lessons: Things You Learn or Relearn When a Close Loved One Dies

  1. So true! Thank you so much, Bro Joe, for sharing your journey. It helped me tremendously! I deeply appreciate your perspectives and your wonderful realistic approach to Christian living.. (and dying!). May God give you his full assurance of where your mom is today.

  2. My mom as your mom is/was the soul survivor of her families …her mom, dad, step father and step mother, uncles, aunts, grand-parent, brothers and sisters….all gone….every morning she wound remember that she is the last one….you are starting to realize that yourself….

    One thing is certain…you were in her mind…because nobody else was………….God Bless and rest in our Blessed Hope

  3. After working 13 long hrs. today, I found this in a unique sense, a very comforting way to end my day. Much assurance and comfort are contained in this blog. Thanks for taking time to place your thoughts into words. These words will bless many.

    Blessings and now time for shower before turing in.

  4. I read this with a lump in my throat. Like you, I have had the honor of assisting at my mother and father’s funerals. Plus an aunt, two uncles, and three cousins. The one thing I have found to be true at every one is the family members always say, “Lets get together.”. But then we leave and go back to our lives. Here’s a thought I think many of us should try- LET’S BE A FAMILY BETWEEN FUNERALS.

  5. I am so glad that you sat in my section that day in Cracker Barrel and left the picture that you drew. I looked up this site and was truly blessed. You and your Family are in my Prayers on your Mom’s passing and your daily Ministering. God has truly blessed everyone that is blessed to meet you!

  6. Joe, We feel with you both the pain and the joy of losing your mother. Your written account of your journey in grief are both excellent and instructive. Thanks for sharing from your heart. We love you. Dixon and Carolyn

  7. Joe, We feel with you both the pain and the joy of losing your mother. Your written account of your journey in grief are both excellent and instructive. Thanks for sharing from your heart. We love you. Dixon and Carolyn

  8. Brother Joe,

    I just finished reading “What a Glad Reunion” and “Funeral Lessons” – both very personal, touching and warm insights on life and death for the Christian. I’ve experienced some of what you have. My Dad, sister, Mom and brother-in-law have passed on as have my wife’s Dad and Mom.

    What a Glad Reunion – good title, good song but a greater promise. My hope is knowing that whatever the length of time we have known our Christian loved ones here on earth we will be with and know them for eternity. My Mom at 94 was the longest living so far of our families. The 56 years I knew her might be equivalent to a nano-second in comparison to eternity…what a comfort.

    God bless and keep you and your family in the coming days ahead.

    Thank you for all you do as a servant of the Lord.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.