I've only been to two funerals... One for a grandmother, that was easy. When you're not that close and know it's coming, it's fine. The casket was open for the visitation, and although I thought it was awkward, it wasn't a big deal.
One of my best friends from elementary school died in a drunk driving accident a few months ago, that was pretty painful. I think the fact that I hadn't talked to him in a few years but kept meaning to made it worse, I still feel guilty about that. That was a closed casket visitation, and I still had a really hard time going up to it. I think I stood around for about 20 minutes before I could force myself to walk up to the family and the casket, and then had to go sit back down to cry for a while, I used to think I'd be able to keep myself from crying when people died... The funeral was easy to handle compared to the visitation. Every once in a while when I get in a thoughtful mood I'll go drive by the cemetary or by his house or go back to the elementary school, just to sit for a while and remember and usually cry for a few.
Anyways, people shouldn't die young. People shouldn't drive drunk. I could complain for a while about how the system makes things worse, eh, i can't help myself. I'm sick of how from the age you're able to understand anything people feed you with bs about how druggies are bad people and how the world stigmatizes users. That combined with no real public transportation where I live creates a nasty situation. People drink, they don't get a designated driver, don't have a safe place to be because they have to hide, can't talk about it especially if they know they have a problem, then bad things happen and those who don't know sit around saying "well, it's their own fault. They were a user, a druggie, a bad seed. They brought these things on themselves." And forget to see how badly the system effed them over, and forget to see that a lot of people lost a friend or a family member who didn't deserve to die.
Good venting session.
