The Front Row

[SLA]

“I’ve been here before, two wakes in the same room” I said to the woman sitting near me. “A friend of the family, and my cousins grandmother. Now I’m here again, this is really sad.” The woman turned to me with great sorrow in her eyes “well, my father’s wake was here last year in this room, and look I’m even sitting in the same chair on the front row. You don’t know sadness and pain until it’s you that have to sit in the front row.”

I thought about what the lady said all the way home from the funeral parlor. Two deaths in two weeks, first the loss of my two of my friends father/grandfather and now the death of my cousin. We grieve and empathize with the families of loved ones when they suffer a loss at the hands of death, but death is not the same when you are on the front row. When it’s your mother, father, sibling, child, grandparent, or spouse that dies. Nothing will ever really prepare you for the front row, it is a seat we must all take at some point in our lives. It is a place reserved for all of those in close relation to the dearly departed and place of insuperable grieve. Unfortunately we can’t avoid it, it’s a part life. And when we get up from our seat after the wake and funeral all that is left are memories, and the spirit of the deceased, meaning all of the things they have imparted to us while they were living.

Death takes away and life gives, so before death knocks on your door (we never know when or how it’s going come or who it may hit), make sure you live a life that gives. If you love someone tell them and show them. If you are in a quarrel with a family member, let it go and forgive them. Fight for your families and fight for unity. Don’t be stingy and self centered with time make room for family and close friends, build good memories because that’s all we will have when they are gone. Enjoy your life and make every effort to be happy, fight for happiness and peace.