Last week my Uncle John passed away.
He was my dad's oldest brother.
Tomorrow my brother and I will drive down together while my parents are already there, preparing for the funeral. By this time tomorrow, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews all be gathered in one place. And it struck me that for many families, funerals are the only time this happens anymore. Life scatters us.
We move to different towns, different states, different countries. We build careers, raise children, get caught up in our own lives. Birthdays become text messages. Christmas becomes ‘maybe next year.’ Before we know it, years have slipped by since we've all stood in the same room.
Then someone dies. Suddenly calendars are cleared. Flights are booked. Long drives are made. Not because we planned a reunion, but because someone we loved has left us. There is something bittersweet about that.
I sometimes wonder how many conversations happen at funerals that should have happened over coffee years earlier. How many cousins meet each other's children for the first time. How many siblings laugh about childhood memories despite the tears in their eyes. Death has an odd way of reminding us that we are still family.
Grief Doesn't Always Look Like Grief
I've also been thinking about grief itself. People often imagine grief as overwhelming sadness. Endless tears. The inability to function. Sometimes it is exactly that. Sometimes it isn't.
If I'm honest, I don't feel devastated by Uncle John's passing.
He had been unwell for quite some time. In many ways, there is relief in knowing he is no longer suffering. Watching someone decline can be its own kind of grieving. By the time death arrives, part of the mourning has already taken place.
That doesn't mean I didn't care. It simply means my grief has taken a different shape. I think we often judge ourselves for not grieving the "right" way, when there really isn't one.
The Many Faces of Grief
Most people have heard of the five stages of grief introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
They're helpful because they give language to experiences many people have after loss. But they were never meant to be a neat checklist. Grief isn't a staircase where you complete one step before moving to the next. It's more like the ocean. Some days the water barely reaches your ankles. Other days a wave arrives out of nowhere and knocks the breath from your lungs.
People move between emotions in different orders. Some never experience certain stages at all. Others revisit them months or years later.
And grief isn't only sadness. It can look like exhaustion. Relief. Guilt. Laughter. Numbness. Busy hands that can't stop cleaning. Silence. Talking constantly. Wanting company. Wanting everyone to leave.
Every response is simply the mind and body trying to make sense of change.
We Grieve More Than the Person
I also think funerals remind us that we rarely grieve just one person. We grieve a generation. We grieve family traditions. We grieve the stories that will never be told again. We grieve the version of ourselves that existed when they were still here.
Tomorrow, I know I'll be watching my dad say goodbye to his oldest brother. That feels significant. There are memories between them that none of us will ever fully know. A shared childhood. Shared parents. Shared moments stretching back decades before I was born.
There is something profoundly moving about witnessing one chapter of a family's history quietly come to an end.
A Reminder to Gather While We Can
Perhaps that is the hidden lesson funerals leave behind. Not simply that life is short. We hear that often enough. Instead, they remind us that connection doesn't have to wait for loss.
That reunions don't need a reason. That stories should be shared while the people who lived them are still sitting beside us. Tomorrow our family will gather because someone has died.
Because while funerals remind us how fragile life is, they also remind us how fortunate we are to belong to a story that stretches across generations.
And perhaps that's worth celebrating while we still can.