Week 42: Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week “When We Die”

Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week Airs EVERY WEDNESDAY at 6pm EASTERN ONLY on RadioRadioX.com

This is Jesse Sample. A friend of mine’s grandmother just passed recently and I went to the funeral with my wife. It was a nice service with a warm gathering afterward. I’m going to more and more of these as I get older and I’m starting to notice a shifting dynamic in my life and maybe in all of our lives. These events are for the living. The wakes, the funerals, and the stops at the bar afterwards. They all exist as places for the living to take that initial step into their new lives. We get together and reorganize our world.

The deceased are frozen in time but all too alive in our memories. I’m always going to my great grandmother’s house when I pull off for a greasy pepperoni lunchbreak. I always hear my Evil Stepmother Maggie cackling and telling someone to kiss her Irish ass when I order beer with a whiskey side-car. I think about my father more 15 years after his death than when he was a phone-call away. These folks are still alive in very important ways.

Funerals have started to become life affirming events for me. We are all equally helpless in the face of this universal appointment. This is a sober recognition, but we are far from alone. And when we lose someone, it’s a good use of our time to commune with the living. Everyone is off kilter and has a unique way of dealing with new loss. Some folks are quiet, some folks tell jokes, and some folks need one night of drinking themselves into oblivion and singing along with everyone else. These are worthwhile rituals and they sweeten our lives.

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