And he’s right.  Your community is becoming less and less defined by your geographical position and more by your cyberspace connection.  The globalization of your relational connections is upon us.

Pluralism is dead.  Pluralism assumed that our communities had set characteristics that defined us from them, part of those characteristics being geographical in nature.  Now, we live in fragmented globalization, where our only real unity is our humanity, and our dividing characteristics are less and less apparent.

So that a Muslim is Facebook friends with a Jew and a conservative retweets a liberal and I, a Pennsylvanian, am wrapped up in the tragedy of the Oklahoma Tornados.

In fact, on my Confessions of a Funeral Director Facebook page, I posted this:

Within minutes, a number of people from the vicinity of Moore were commenting on how they had yet to hear from some of their family members.  And then, it became real for me too.  I was touching a people group that I barely knew through the internet, so that Oklahoma’s tragedy become mine.

My feelings – and everyone else’s feelings – were valid for the Moore community.  And our support for Moore – both financial and physical – underscores our humanity.  And yet, those feelings, a couple days removed from the tragedy are beginning to dissipate.  In fact, unless you are directly connected to Moore, you may have already begun to forget about it.

Why?

*****

Robert Dunbar believes that the human person / human brain only has the maximum capacity to understand /experientially know 150 people … everybody that we meet outside of those 150 will be relegated into a category and/or generalization that we’ve created from the milieu of the those 150.  Outside those 150 is “the other.”  Everyone outside of those 150, in some sense, aren’t human.

Dunbar’s hypothesis is now popularly known (thanks to “Cracked”) as “monkey sphere.”  Here’s a bit from Cracked “Monkey Sphere” article

Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They’re sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?

I mean, they’re not people. They’re teachers.

“So? What difference does all this make?”

Oh, not much. It’s just the one single reason society doesn’t work.

It’s like this: which would upset you more, your best friend dying, or a dozen kids across town getting killed because their bus collided with a truck hauling killer bees? Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?

They’re all humans and they are all equally dead. But the closer to our Monkeysphere they are, the more it means to us. Just as your death won’t mean anything to the Chinese or, for that matter, hardly anyone else more than 100 feet or so from where you’re sitting right now.

“Why should I feel bad for them? I don’t even know those people!”

Exactly. This is so ingrained that to even suggest you should feel their deaths as deeply as that of your best friend sounds a little ridiculous. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside our Monkey sphere versus the 99.999% of the world’s population who are on the outside

*****

 With monkeysphere in mind, I wonder if the world isn’t becoming like some funeral directors when it comes to tragedy.  Funeral directors see tragedy on such a constant basis that we seem to be accustom to it.  So much so that we can forget who we buried last week.

In fact, one of the most common questions I get from acquaintances is this: “How can you not become numb to all this?”  And the truth is, we aren’t numb to a tragic death … it affects us … it always affects us.  But, that tragic death only sits with us for a couple days and then we can, to one degree or another, move along.  It isn’t to say we aren’t compassionate, this isn’t to say we aren’t dedicated; it’s to say that we serve you when YOU have lost YOUR loved one.

And we, who are locked into the global nervous system of a fragmented community become so accustom to our nerves being touched by tragedy all around the world that we too feel compassion and act on that compassion, but we only feel as close as we are to the situation and sometimes we quickly forgetabout the whole thing in a matter of days … sometimes in a matter of hours.

Who here remembers Haiti?  The Haiti earthquake of 2010?

The one that left an estimated 300,000 children orphaned?

When is the last time you remembered them?

This isn’t to say we don’t care.  Just like funeral directors, when I’m working a funeral … I’m fully present.  Fully aware of your circumstances and more than willing to do what I can to serve you.  But, you aren’t my closest friend, you aren’t my relative and you probably aren’t apart of the 150 that I call “person.”  You are other.  And I can’t help it.  As much as I try, you’re deceased isn’t my loved one.

Oklahomans are my fellow Americans.  I’m connected to various people through Facebook.  I donated to the Red Cross.  I grieved for those children in the elementary school.  I vicariously imagined the terror they must have felt.  And we move on, while those in Moore, Oklahoma struggle to piece a broken world back together, we move on.

*****

Is this wrong?  Should we seek to overcome this “Monkeysphere”?  

After reading this article, how does it make you feel?

Jesus came with all the potential power that He wanted. He used it to heal the sick, raise the dead, touch the untouchable and heal the souls of the broken.  In fact, it’s not even the miracles that are amazing … what’s amazing is who he performed the miracles for.  The outcast.  The hated.  The enemy.

Yet, He was outcast, beaten, spit on, possibly raped (if was acceptable for soldiers to rape criminals) and eventually killed at the request of those he loved.  He could of … maybe even should have … destroyed His enemies … He had the power to, but He didn’t.

Sin, revenge, egotism is cyclic … but so is love. With one act of grace (“Father, forgive them”), a new narrative has been born … again and again.

That narrative was reborn at the Mt. Carmel Burying Ground.

The deceased Boston Bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was accepted by Peter Stefan, owner of the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors.  Stefan, who is seemingly putting his respect for the dead over and above his business’ prosperity, has been quoted as saying that everyone deserves a dignified burial, no matter the circumstances of their death.

As one may expect, Stefan’s funeral home has received numerous protests; and rightfully so.  The body his funeral home is housing is the deceased remains of a terrorist.  A terrorist whose actions injured 264 people and killed four; one of whom was a police officer, and the other a young child.  Not only did he accomplish this bombing, but he planned much more violence and destruction that one can only speculate he would have accomplish had he the chance to do so.

He was our enemy.  He killed an American child.  A beautiful son of our country.

An enemy whose body has been rejected by all the local cemeteries.  A body that has no place to rest.  And for good reason.  Could you imagine the grave desecration that would occur?  Could you imagine the curse that will reside over the cemetery that accepts a terrorist?

From a capital standpoint, it wouldn’t make sense for the cemetery to accept his body and lose future customers.  Who wants to be buried near a terrorist?

From a safety standpoint, it doesn’t make sense.  Cemeteries are already subject to vandalism and desecration, what more could happen if a terrorists body was interred in a place accustom to abuses?  Would the cemetery need to install security cameras?  People would vandalize his grave in the name of America.

Out of respect for those already buried and the families that buried them, a cemetery has reason to reject one Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  How can families feel good about the cemetery where their relatives reside when they are residing near a terrorist?

He was our enemy and must remain our outsider.  “Ship him back to where he came from!!!”, said some.  “Cremate his ass!” said others.  Perhaps the request to bury him in an unmarked grave was the most levelheaded suggestion; but, so far, no cemeteries have offered an unmarked grave for the terrorist.

And then on Tuesday morning, this piece of news comes out.  Paul Keane, the owner of a plot in the Mt. Carmel Burying Ground (and Yale Divinity graduate) wrote this on his blog:

I am willing to donate a burial plot next to my mother in Mt. Carmel Burying Ground to the Tsarnaev family if they cannot obtain a plot. The only condition is that I do it in memory of my mother who taught Sunday School at the Mt. Carmel Congregational Church for twenty years and taught me to “love thine enemy.”

I own the plot.  No one can refuse me access.

This is the cemetery lot that Paul is offering

So far, the response to Paul has varied between praise and protest.  And so it was 2,000 years ago.  Grace is always scandalous; but it’s also cyclic.

(NOTE: As of Wednesday morning, it’s still unclear whether or not the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors has accepted Paul Keane’s offer.  There is, however, an updated offer on Keane’s blog. )

What isn’t seen in those obituaries is that in order for them to be published, the parents and the families had to make one of the most difficult decisions of their life: to view or not to view.

As the details of the shooting were coming out over the weekend, I was particularly struck by one piece of information: the shooter had shot each of his victims multiple times (3 to 11 times).  Many will interpret such information as farther evidence of Adam Lanza’s psychosis (and that would be a correct interpretation), but we funeral directors see it from a different perspective.

When there’s a tragic, sudden death, when there isn’t an opportunity to say one last “good-bye”, it’s a natural, innate response for the family to want to see their deceased one last time, just to see them face-to-face and say that final parting gesture.  No matter how opposed you may be to viewing the deceased, those walls are torn down in a tragedy and “we just HAVE to see our little angel.”

Daniel Honan, the Funeral Director for the only funeral home in Newtown.

As a funeral director, it’s often our job to let the family know just how bad the deceased is mangled.  We then have to be honest with ourselves, “Can we reconstruct the severe trauma?  Can we make this look somewhat normal?

The conversation goes something like this (and it assumes the family wants/needs to view):

Funeral director:  “Your loved one experience physical trauma.  I will do everything I can to make him/her viewable.  But, you have to decide what you want.

One.  You can have a private viewing at the funeral home and then cremate after you view.  We can have a memorial service whenever you want.

Two.  You can have a private viewing and then have a closed casket for the funeral service.

Three.  You can have a private viewing and if you feel comfortable with the way he/she looks, you can have a public viewing as well.

What follows is the beginning of one of the toughest decisions of their life.  They want to view, but do they really want to see their child with ….

Gun shot wounds are unpredictable creatures.  They can be utterly destructive or they can be so small you wouldn’t even know the wound was there.  My guess is that the wounds at Sandy Hook were of the former and not the latter.

And this is the nature of evil.  It keeps taking and taking and taking.  Not only was your son or daughter taken, but now – because of the trauma of these deaths, you have to make a decision you NEVER, EVER could even imagine.  You could never imagine your child would be taken in this manner.  You could never imagine that you’d have this insatiable desire to see your child.  And you never thought you’d have to confront this unimaginable reality: your child may be too distorted to be viewed.

This shouldn’t be happening.  This should never happen.  But, over the past weekend this decision was made 27 times.

On Friday, December 14th, Sandy Hook Elementary experienced a tragedy that is creating a new normal for the town of Newtown, Connecticut.

The very same day as the school shootings I worked a viewing at a small Mennonite church in Gap, PA.  As with most Mennonite churches, the pastor is bi-vocational.   This specific pastor works as a part-time pastor and full-time salesman for an agricultural feed company.  The area that he covers includes Bart Township, the same area that experienced the Amish school shootings in 2006.

We walked in to the church, set up the casket and flowers and I broke the news to the pastor about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.  His countenance fell as he immediately connected the Sandy Hook shooting to the Amish School shooting.  “I’ve been the salesman there for years.  All the Amish families are my friends.  Just the other day one of the mothers who lost a daughter told me she’s reminded of her daughter every time she sees children coming home from school.”

This, like all tragedy, finds a life of its own.  Friday, December 14^th marks the first day of a new normal for Newtown, Connecticut.  In many ways, this new normal is a sad birth.  In this blog post, I want to look at the practical side of how the next couple days and weeks will look for Newtown.

*****

TRAUMA RESPONSE: Thankfully, there are professionals who are being tasked this very moment in setting up response teams.  The American Red Cross, various hospice programs and the American Psychological Association all have large scale trauma response teams who are trained to counsel children and parents in psychological and bereavement support, organize support groups and guide the community back to some type of semblance.  The response teams will evaluate, support, offer guidance and help as the children, parents and teachers begin this dark journey.

Children do grieve.  As long as there are relationships formed, there’s grief.  And while the general public is not very adept at understanding a child’s ability to grasp death, those from the APA, Red Cross and hospice programs are.  All the children will experience traumatic grief (CTG), many will experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the hope will be that these children, like the youth from Columbine, will bond together and find deep fellowship in their grief, sorrow and pain.

Pragmatic questions like, “When do we restart school?” and “When should I go back to work?” will be guided by these wonderful angels from the response teams.

*****

BODY IDENTIFICATION AND FAMILY NOTIFICATION:  By deduction, the families know whether or not their son or daughter, husband or wife is dead by the simple fact that they didn’t come home.  But, their son or daughter, husband or wife may be so … that the bodies have yet to be identified.

Some families may be called into the hospital to visually identify their loved ones, other bodies may be too distorted and will need to be identified through other, more technical means.  All the bodies will be studied, some autopsied, some given for organ donation and one – the shooters – will be looked upon with contempt by all who view him.

Once identified, the families will start the funeral arrangements.

*****

These police were apparently some of the first on the scene of the Newtown shootings.

FUNERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:  There’s only one funeral home in Newtown, Connecticut. And while I doubt the Honan Funeral Home will bury all the victims and the shooter, they will probably bury many of them.  From what I can tell by the obituary section on their website, the Honan Funeral Home is not a very large funeral home.  In fact, they’ve only advertised 12 obituaries in the past year.  They will need help as they could very well have twice their yearly volume in one week.  And thankfully, per this article, other surrounding funeral directors are offering their help to Honan.

Any funeral home and funeral director who works with these families will need their own type of support over the months to come.  Most of us don’t enter this business because we’re cold hearted; rather, we enter it because we’re generally big hearted.  These tragedies hurt us as well.  Embalming the body of an elementary school student that has been autopsied and shot is enough to permanently disturb anyone, including a seasoned funeral director.

Questions of “how will this family pay for this funeral?” are likely taken off the table, either by the funeral director’s generosity or by nonprofits like Bury a Child (run by my friend Nancy Burban, who lives in a neighboring town) who are already donating caskets and raising funds for funeral expenses of the children (UPDATE: Per Nancy, all the funds have been raised to cover the funeral expenses of the victims).

Police and other first responders will carry a burden that no man or woman should ever carry.  They have seen images no one should ever see.

Pastors, too, will experience many sleepless nights as they prepare words for an unspeakable event.

*****

THE NEAR FUTURE: The funerals will be large, sad and no doubt full of horrible theology explaining how we can’t question God, how God will turn this into good, etc.  Yet, despite the horrible theology, many churches will find themselves full.  Churches will comfort some families.  The community will become more closely knit.  Memorials and monuments will be built to honor the memory of the children and the teachers.  School will eventually reconvene.  On December 14^th, 2013 CNN will hold a special marking the one year anniversary of the shootings.  And in five years the world will forget.

But the pain will linger.  The grief will remain in the hearts of the parents and their families.  Time will not heal these wounds.  This is the new normal for Newtown, Connecticut.

Jerry Brown

Another week in the NFL.  Another tragic death.  Another reaffirmation of a culture of “play on.”

Last week it was the Kansas City Chief’s Javon Belcher who shot himself in front of his coach.   This week it’s the Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Brown.  Brown was the passenger in teammate Josh Brent’s car, when Brent lost control, wrecked his car, killing Brown –  who just announced a couple days ago that he’s a father-to-be.

Brent, who survived the crash with a couple cuts and bruises, is being charged with “intoxication manslaughter.”  The crash happened Saturday, effectively destroying the lives of two young men.

On Sunday (the day after the crash), the Cowboys, like the Kansas City Chiefs a week before, decided to play their game against the Cincinnati Bengals.  And like the Chiefs, the Cowboys won.

This from the head coach of the Cowboys after they beat the Bengals:

I’m very proud of our football team. Somehow, someway they did find a way to channel the emotion that we had. I think there was a feeling of numbness out on the field today but somehow they focused it and we figured out a way to win this ballgame. I thought we honored him as well as he could be honored. This is a day I’m never going to forget. Its’ a tragic day for all of us. I’m never going to forget how this football team came together and honored Jerry Brown and his family. We’ll continue to mourn his loss. We’ll continue to miss him, and we’ll never forget about him.

It’s obvious that – like the Chief’s players and coaches – the Cowboys are mourning the loss of Brown.  And it seems obvious that – like the Chiefs – the Cowboys saw that they honored Brown by playing and by winning.

This style of grieving is important to note, as it is distinctly what psychologists have termed an “instrumental grieving style.”  This “instrumental grieving style” is generally attributed to the style that men choose to use.  Most (not all) men tend to

One. suppress their emotional responses,

Two.  hide their vulnerability,

Three.  focus on thinking (as opposed to feeling) about the loss,

Four.  seek to solve practice problem via engaging in physical activity

Five.  immerse themselves in work. (Martin and Doka)

The other type of grieving style (intuitive) is where the person learns to express their emotions and reach out for help.  The intuitive style has traditionally been seen as the conventional norm for grieving, where the “instrumental style” has been downplayed as improper and incorrect.

The fact is that different people have different styles of grieving and both styles can come with their own forms of complication.  A person using an intuitive style can just as easily bury themselves in their emotional life as a person using the instrumental style can bury themselves in their work life.

Traditionally, the instrumental style of grief (usually practiced by men) has been belittled.  But, it’s not wrong per se.  In fact, it’s the way many grieve.  And it’s okay.

What’s wrong is the culture of the NFL that is so predominately male that there’s little to no pause from work.  There is no pause.  There’s just an attitude of “play on.”  An attitude that sees “winning” and “playing” as nearly synonymous with “honoring.”  A culture that would rather play the game than allow for a pause and send a message that “drinking and driving is dead wrong” … that “even the athletes of the NFL aren’t impervious to bad choices.”

It’s okay that the players and coaches what to honor their deceased friend with their work.  What’s not okay is that the NFL let the game go on the very next day.  The NFL might be a case study in “masculine grief”, but it’s also a case study in money and sport over life and death.

Javon Belcher played his college ball at the small University of Maine.  He went undrafted in the 2009 NFL draft, but was eventually signed by the Kansas City Chiefs and in 2010 he started as an inside linebacker, producing his best year in 2011.

In football, there’s players who are considered “character guys”, which essentially means that although they might lack in talent, they make up for it in their willingness to learn from their coaches and in their solid off the field reputation.  Javon Belcher was described as a “character guy”.  He had a supportive family, was a proud father to his 3 month old daughter and was described as a genuine person.

This past Saturday, December 1^st, Javon murdered his girlfriend (and mother of his child), 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins.  He then went to the Chiefs stadium, thanked the Chief’s GM, Head Coach and other personnel for the opportunity they had given him and shot himself in front of them.  The coach tried to convince Belcher to stop, but the coach acknowledged that he failed to do so.

Belcher’s girlfriend and their daughter.

He didn’t take the time to apologize to his daughter for making her an orphan.  No, he thanked the football gods.

The powers that be discussed the possibility of postponing the Chiefs game on Sunday against the Caroline Panthers.  From the Miami Herald:

A league official said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke with both DeMaurice Smith, the head of the NFL Players Association, and Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt.

Neither the union nor the Chiefs, after Crennel spoke with team captains, objected to the game being played as scheduled. The possibility of a postponement was discussed, but none of the parties thought that to be appropriate.

The hot topic for NFL Commissioner Goodell wasn’t when the grief counselors could meet with the team, it wasn’t how the Chiefs could start the mourning process and how the NFL could encourage proper services.  No, they thought it would be inappropriate to cancel the game.  I mean a guy ONLY shot himself infront of his coach.  He ONLY just killed his girlfriend.

Already, the quarterback of the Chiefs is questioning himself.  After the game, Brady Quinn talked about his thoughts:

“It’s hard mostly because I keep thinking about what I could have done to stop this. I think everyone is wondering whether we would have done something to prevent this from happening. And then we’re all thinking about his daughter, three or four months old and without a parent. It’s hard to not allow the emotions of the situation to creep into your head with the game this close. But we’re going to do the best we can to concentrate on the task at hand.”

The players are doing the best they can to ignore their emotions so that they can concentrate on the task at hand?  This is why they should have postponed the game.   

But they didn’t.  This from Sportsillustrated:

“As far as playing the game, I thought that was the best for us to do, because that’s what we do,” Crennel said, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “We’re football players and football coaches and that’s what we do, we play on Sunday.”

“We’re football players” says Crennel.  Apparently that means that they’re not human.  They’re better at hitting people than they are at dealing with loss, love, violence, emotions.

The NFL could’ve used this opportunity to pause, postpone the game and allow for the much needed discussion about suicide and domestic violence to ensue.  Sure, postponing the game might have angered the Networks, but that’s the idea.  Instead of all the commentators and pundits talking about how the Chiefs won the game over the Panthers, they’d be talking about the pause; they’d be keenly reflecting on the tragedy.

If the game was postponed, this is the message that would have followed: “Suicide and domestic violence, life and death are more important than football.”

The NFL isn’t the only part of American society that doesn’t give a pause for death.  Death is simply too much of an inconvenience for us.  We’re so set on building our gods … building ourselves into a god, that we remove anything that reminds us of our humanity.  The NFL is a microcosm of American life.  We’re so intent on building the dream, that we like to ignore reality.

I see this “ignorance” all the time at the funeral home.

“Johnny can’t make grandpa’s funeral … he has finals.”

“Let’s push Dad’s funeral to next Saturday … I have a big business meeting this week.”

“So and so can’t make grandma’s funeral … he’s got a lot going on.”

We’re too busy with school to give a pause.  Too busy with work to give a pause.  Too busy with our Facebook feed to give a pause.  Too busy with OUR lives that we forget about the lives of others.

But, I’m not sure how Freud et al would have interpreted the following request.  What happens when you want to make your private part into a tombstone?

And what happens when that private part is not a penis?

What happens when you want this tombstone va jay jay so much that you not only put it in your will but make it your dying wish to your husband to have it done?

And what happens when you give this reason for the tombstone va jay jay to your husband: “I don’t want you chasing other women. This way you will always remember me.”

What happens, you may ask?  You get a video like this (which may be NSFW, is slightly PG-13 ish and will definitely offend you even more if you’re already offended.).

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Winehouse, she was an immensely talented singer and songwriter who won five Grammy awards off of two albums, whose immense talent was only rivaled by her drug and alcohol addiction.

I don’t own any of Winehouse’s albums, so I can’t really comment on her music or life.  I had heard “Rehab” on the radio, loved her voice and was drawn to her pop / jazz / R & B fusion that I heard, but my knowledge of her music and life didn’t extend beyond that.

Winehouse died from an overdose of alcohol (her blood alcohol level was five times the legal driving limit) joining the “Forever 27” club of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, who all died at the age of 27, with Joplin being the only one who didn’t die from drug abuse.

******

I have an addictive personality.  So, I’m glad that I never touched drugs.

I’m also thankful, that – although I’ve had friends who have used – I’ve never lost a friend to drugs.

I really don’t have much of a right to comment on drugs and drug addiction with any authority.

All I can do is comment vicariously from the various families, whose paths we’ve crossed as they’ve traversed the last stage of their loved one’s drug drama.

And there are two themes that I’ve heard: 1.) drugs are some of the most insidious evils to befall humanity. 2.) there may be something worse than death.

******

I’ve heard a number of parents express to us that death was a welcome event for their drug addicted child.  Such a view of death – I must admit – makes no sense to me.  I can’t grasp something so awful that death is better than living.

The ups and downs a parent experiences as their love inevitably intimately connects them to their beloved addict.  It’s as though they (the parents) go into the world of addiction, experiencing all the downs without the highs, living life on the edge, with all the fear the addict sees, but without the adrenaline rush.

Now that I am a parent, I’m beginning to understand what it’s like to have another life become more important than my own, where I feel the pain of the scrapped knee; where I too feel the failure of being cut from the team.  Of course I love my wife more than I love myself, but … from what I understand … the love of a parent to a child is of an entirely different kind, where the child’s joys, fears and pain become our own.

******

So, how must a parent of a drug addicted child feel?

What’s it like to never know where your child’s at, who your child is with … if this night is indeed the last.  To feel a powerless love, where all you want is freedom for your child, but realizing all your love has no power over the power of drug addiction.  The tears, the prayers, the worrying, anxiety, the questions … “What did I do wrong?  What can I do to change him?”  The insanity of loving someone who is destroying themselves as well as you.  To have hope killed relapse after relapse.

And then the story ends.

The police end up at your front door and you already know what they’re about to say, but the tears still come … you’ve been waiting for this day.  “Ma’am, I regret to inform you that your son is dead.”  Word’s you’ve expected.

******

Is there something worse than death?  I don’t know.  And I hope you don’t know either.

“Oh, sh*t.”

I’ve had a brief twitter interaction with one of the WBC Phelps clan.  And a couple years ago, WBC threatened to picket one of our funerals.  A friend of mine was KIA in Iraq.  It was the first Iraq War death in our area and received a lot of news coverage, which in turn attracted the leeches from WBC.

A biker gang also caught wind of WBC’s plans and they showed up to enforce their own type of justice if WBC showed up … which they didn’t … thankfully.  The family of my buddy didn’t need WBC, nor did they need the biker gang beating the crap out the Phelps cult.

I’ve often wondered how we would approach WBC if they were to actually protest one of our funerals.

I couldn’t reason with them.

I couldn’t pay them to leave.

I couldn’t pray them away.

Although resorting to violence might be tempting, it’s just not my style.

Texas A&M tried a successful strategy when an Alumni of A&M was KIA.  Approximately 650 A&M students and alumni showed up at the Central Baptist Church, created an “Aggie Wall” and blocked the WBC from protesting.

Win!!!

But there’s another method that was recently used that might not be as beautiful as the Aggie Wall, but it’s much more creative.

For some unknown reason (there were no funerals … I guess WBC was just in the area), the WBC decided to picket Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Seattle.  Twenty-seven year old Melissa Neace organized a counter-protest, launching a Facebook group titled “Zombie’ing Westboro Baptist Church AWAY from Fort Lewis!”

How do you stop Westboro Baptist Picketers?

Zombies.  Lots of Zombies.

Here’s the video:

Sally Ride — the first female astronaut — used her obituary to unveil her 27 year companionship with Tam O’Shaughnessy.  And while Sally was a hero in life, here obituary just doesn’t have the flair that Val Patterson wove into his obituary.

Val Patterson — a little known scientist from Utah — wrote for himself one of the more intriguing (and long) obituaries I’ve read.  It’s epic.  The confessions start in the fourth paragraph, but — if I were you — I’d read the whole thing.  It’s packed with goodness and humor, and a dash of wisdom.

1953 – 2012

I was Born in Salt Lake City, March 27th 1953. I died of Throat Cancer on July 10th 2012. I went to six different grade schools, then to Churchill, Skyline and the U of U. I loved school, Salt Lake City, the mountains, Utah. I was a true Scientist. Electronics, chemistry, physics, auto mechanic, wood worker, artist, inventor, business man, ribald comedian, husband, brother, son, cat lover, cynic.

I had a lot of fun. It was an honor for me to be friends with some truly great people. I thank you. I’ve had great joy living and playing with my dog, my cats and my parrot. But, the one special thing that made my spirit whole, is my long love and friendship with my remarkable wife, my beloved Mary Jane. I loved her more than I have words to express. Every moment spent with my Mary Jane was time spent wisely. Over time, I became one with her, inseparable, happy, fulfilled.

I enjoyed one good life. Traveled to every place on earth that I ever wanted to go. Had every job that I wanted to have. Learned all that I wanted to learn. Fixed everything I wanted to fix. Eaten everything I wanted to eat. My life motto was: “Anything for a Laugh”. Other mottos were “If you can break it, I can fix it”, “Don’t apply for a job, create one”. I had three requirements for seeking a great job; 1 – All glory, 2 – Top pay, 3 – No work.

Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say. As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn’t even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters “PhD” even stood for.

For all of the Electronic Engineers I have worked with, I’m sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work.

Now to that really mean Park Ranger; after all, it was me that rolled those rocks into your geyser and ruined it. I did notice a few years later that you did get Old Faithful working again. To Disneyland – you can now throw away that “Banned for Life” file you have on me, I’m not a problem anymore – and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this.

To the gang: We grew up in the very best time to grow up in the history of America. The best music, muscle cars, cheap gas, fun kegs, buying a car for “a buck a year” – before Salt Lake got ruined by over population and Lake Powell was brand new. TV was boring back then, so we went outside and actually had lives. We always tried to have as much fun as possible without doing harm to anybody – we did a good job at that.

If you are trying to decide if you knew me, this might help… My father was RD “Dale” Patterson, older brother “Stan” Patterson, and sister “Bunny” who died in a terrible car wreck when she was a Junior at Skyline. My mom “Ona” and brother “Don” are still alive and well. In college I worked at Vaughns Conoco on 45th South and 29th East. Mary and I are the ones who worked in Saudi Arabia for 8 years when we were young. Mary Jane is now a Fitness Instructor at Golds on Van Winkle – you might be one of her students – see what a lucky guy I am? Yeah, no kidding.

My regret is that I felt invincible when young and smoked cigarettes when I knew they were bad for me. Now, to make it worse, I have robbed my beloved Mary Jane of a decade or more of the two of us growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that we have come to enjoy and fill our lives with such happy words and moments. My pain is enormous, but it pales in comparison to watching my wife feel my pain as she lovingly cares for and comforts me. I feel such the “thief” now – for stealing so much from her – there is no pill I can take to erase that pain.

If you knew me or not, dear reader, I am happy you got this far into my letter. I speak as a person who had a great life to look back on. My family is following my wishes that I not have a funeral or burial. If you knew me, remember me in your own way. If you want to live forever, then don’t stop breathing, like I did.