Celebrating Life

Today Sarah and I went to a funeral for someone we both used to work with. It was especially sad because he was only a couple of months younger than me. His was the most well-attended funeral I've been to, and I think that probably happens because he was so young. There was a whole pew of just his co-workers from our restaurant, and even more who came late and sat in the back. On the one hand, it was nice to see my former co-workers come together in support of one of our own, but on the other hand, it sucked that it had to be under so sad a circumstance.

I really only went to be supportive and comfort my friends, I didn't really go to mourn his death. It's not that I'm happy he's gone, I'm never happy when someone dies, especially someone so young. We weren't really friends, I didn't talk to him outside of work, I didn't come in on my nights off and sit in his section. Unfortunately, I didn't know him when he was clean. I don't know what he was on, and it doesn't matter, but he wasn't the nicest person when he was on drugs. I had heard a couple of months ago that he had gotten clean and I was glad to hear it, but the last time I saw him was before he left our restaurant, when he was still a jerk. We butted heads because he did dumb stuff to co-workers on purpose and I didn't like it. Despite everything though, he was a hard worker and always willing to pick up a shift and pull his own weight and that was what I respected about him, even if I didn't like him.

For the record, his cause of death was unknown, not drug related and his parents mentioned that after the end of mass when they got up to speak about him for a few minutes. His parents, though visibly upset, held themselves together just long enough to gives us the highlights of his life and a few of the tragic events that may have lead to his death. He got cleaned up 3 months ago with the help of his father after a fight with depression and never looked back. Fr. Carl mentioned in his homily that when it's time for him to go, he hopes that he can have his life as together as this young man did. That was a positive way to look at the death of such a young person, he had his life together when he left us and we can only hope that when it's our turn, our lives can be just as together.