Cliff's funeral

We had Cliff's funeral yesterday. It was brief, but it did the job.

By "did the job," I mean that it gave a lot of us a chance to get together as a unique community and remember him. I'm turning out to be quite an isolationist, but I have to say it felt proper and natural to sit with people in this grief, and stand in front of them and try to tell them what I had lost, what they had lost.

Through lack of preparation (mostly my own), I allowed someone else to give Cliff's eulogy: his ex-wife's brother Chris. He did a fine job, and I felt a stab of shame that I wasn't up there doing it myself. Kirk, the pastor/priest/religious muckety-muck (I can't keep the titles straight) neared the end of the prayers and speeches, he offerred to let some of the attendees say a few words about Cliff. I was grateful for the chance to do so, and I sprinted out of my pew like a runner off the mark. I had been thinking for weeks about what I would say about my brother, and although wisps of thought would blow through my empty head, somehow a lifetime of experiences wouldn't line up and play nice for this presentation.

Still, I had been able to cobble together a few key points, that my brother was intelligent, compassionate and courageous, and that we'd lost a good man. I managed to walk the line between grief and stoicism without disintegrating and croak out a few minutes of this tribute in an anguish groan of a voice, which I wasn't at all sure that I could manage until it was done. It's not as good as he deserved (my brother deserved an army of people to fill that place and take a week to wail and praise his humanity), but it was an able attempt.

I was tremendously heartened by others who stood up to say a few words on my brother's behalf, two of whom were from his ex-wife's family. My brother had taken them into his home for months at a time when they had pitifully few other options, and helped to raise their children as some sort of a family unit at a time when their lives were in a tremendous state of fluctuation. I knew in the back of my mind that he had done things like that, but it was wildly bolstering to be reminded, and to know that those people remembered and still appreciated his generosity and sacrifice on their behalf. When I said he was a better man than me, this is just one example.

We collected afterward and I reflected on his openness with people and how it contrasts with my own detachment. He took to people much better than I ever did, warmed to them and accepted them with an open and generous heart, and I am only beginning to realize and admire the courage that that took. I am getting to an age where I can see more and more clearly that my own detachment is a huge mistake.

This is just one of the lessons I am taking from Cliff's loss. It's been a lesson for which the price was far too great - I'd much rather be ignorant and have my brother back. Since that's not an option, I'll have to do my best not to waste what benefit his passing has bestowed.