Remembering funeral traditions and a good friend Grief is a complicated thing.

Grief is a complicated thing.
My late maternal grandmother was a first generation American, with both her parents coming from Ireland.
She grew up as a devoted Catholic, so it meant Saturday night or Sunday morning church, and of course fish and chips on Friday nights. (We don’t do fish fries back home, a column for another day.) It also meant going to a lot of funerals and wakes.
My grandma believed deeply in the idea of funerals and wakes being for the living and not the dead.
It was an interesting concept, especially for a Catholic woman, who up until the day she died, argued with my uncle, who is a Fransican friar, about why he was too relaxed on many things.
She believed in the importance of Catholic burials, but she also understood, for many, funerals, wakes, and celebrations of lives, were all to help support the living in their grief.
Growing up, she would drag me to many different wakes, and if it was a day off from school, funerals. A lot of the time, she didn’t know the person who died well, but she knew the people who were mourning, that was what mattered to her: being there to support people.
She would also hold on to funeral cards. She had a ton of them, I thought as a kid. I remember one time even asking my mom when we were at a wake for someone if I should pick up a card for grandma. She got a good chuckle at my innocent, young self.
Like the living, Rhode Island’s dead are generally condensed into small areas, with just a couple of Catholic cemeteries across the state.
My grandma believed in the importance of visiting these cemeteries, at least a few times a year.
As she got older, she often went with her longtime friend, who of course also had loved ones buried in the same cemeteries.
They would have all sorts of decorations for the different seasons and would place them at different graves.
As people passed away in her various grandkids’ families, she would make sure to stop at those graves as well.
This was another adventure growing up with grandma. I often volunteered to go, and we’d start at the first cemetery and visit a number of different grave sites. Many of the people were my relatives, but we would visit others as well.
Then it was off to the next cemetery, just a few miles away.
My grandma would tell me stories about her days growing up in South Providence, as many of the people we would be visiting were her aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Of course, after was lunch or Dunkin’, so as a kid, and even a teenager, this was what we looked forward to most.
As I have become older, I think my grandma had a good point.
Whether it’s visiting gravesites or making sure to attend funerals, we all grieve in different ways, and it doesn’t just stop a few days after a death.
My grandma, who was huge on funerals, died at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It meant a very small funeral, with just our immediate family, inside the funeral hall.
But we obviously weren’t going to leave it at that, so about a year later, we had a remembrance mass.
The pandemic is also when our close friend Matt died.
It was July 2021. He died unexpectedly in his sleep, in Shoreview, Minn.
We were absolutely devastated when we heard the news. However, we were living in Rhode Island at the time, and there were a lot of COVID-19 cases. With my wife working in the healthcare field at the time, we decided to not go.
This was devastating, particularly for my wife, who was best friends with Matt for about a decade. The two met while working together as lifeguards. Matt was in college, and my wife was working a second job, while living in the Cities.
Years later, as we were becoming serious in 2018, my wife decided right away that she needed me to meet two of her closest friends, Matt and Caroline.
We would drive up from St. James or Mankato to the Cities for a Twins game and to hangout.
She explained to me we would be staying at Matt’s house.
I was a little skeptical about the whole thing, but within a minute or two, I knew Matt and I would be good friends.
For the past few years, we have met at a brewery in March to celebrate Matt’s birthday. His childhood friends arrange the gathering to remember him for all the good times we had together.
I think this is a pretty special thing. Everybody has busy lives, but even though he is gone, Matt still has that effect on people: He can bring them together.
A couple of years ago, when we had the get-together, we all noticed signs as we walked in.
“Love is Blind” was being filmed. It was fun to see the behind the scenes. We all agreed Matt would’ve liked watching it.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make it this year, but we made sure to think of him a little bit extra this past week.