We met in the service hall of the funeral home.  We had grown up together, although not exactly the same age, but we were in high school together and attended church together.  As we aged, our paths had taken very different directions; one was an elected county official, one a cosmetologist, one an accountant turned funeral director from necessity.  But tonight we all had a single mission—to help a grieving family deal with their loss.

The cosmetologist was there for hair and make-up at the family’s request.  It’s an important part of the process for if it isn’t exactly right, there’s a stranger in the casket instead of a loved one.  The county official was there for moral support and the accountant turned funeral director was there to grant them access and to answer whatever questions they might have.

When the work was completed, the accountant/funeral director was paged to the room by means of a text message and asked to pass judgment on the effort.  Looking at the face before them was difficult for all three.  This was someone they had grown up with, a peer of their parents, the mother of their friends.  In life she had been a beautiful woman, both inside and out, and death had not taken that from her in spite of her illness.

As all three walked down the hall, back toward the front of the building, one of them remarked, “Who would have thought when we were teenagers we would be doing this now?”  She was so very right.  Life occasionally presents you with a situation you could never have foreseen, even with a crystal ball.

Under the best of circumstances, death brings people together.  Family and friends gather to offer comfort and support and often the funeral home becomes the site of reunions where distant relatives catch up on the latest news and friends who rarely see one another reminisce about the good old days, sharing stories about the one life that brought everyone to this same place in time.  The problems come when we believe that comfort and support are no longer necessary, that we have progressed as a society to the point when we no longer need one another in times of sorrow.

Our paths separated once more as we each went our own way.  We will come together again at the funeral and probably more in the future since I’m fairly certain death will continue to call.  But in the meantime, it is comforting to know there are people in this world that will put their lives on hold to be there when it matters most.

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