It was for a young man, only 27, who was killed in Arizona in a rollover car crash, swerving to avoid a cow in the road. His name was Philip, and he was his mother's only son, unbaptized.
I didn't have a close friendship with him; he was the cousin of another young person in the hall. My only real memory came from a barbeque held at the stadium for the Urban League. He and his buddies got me--and I think I was in my early teens at the time--in a clutch and tickled me so hard that I was tearing up and gasping for air! They picked on me like I was their little brother.
He looked like Dave Chappelle, but with more hair. The montage pictures had him throwing up peace signs with his buddies, giving shifty gazes into the camera, or playing basketball. There were early ones of him in a Mickey Mouse hat getting his cheeks pinched. The pics of him graduating just made me lose it, just to see all the potential gone.
I'm going to be honest, he didn't make good choices in his youth. He smoked pot. He engaged in theft. But he was finally taking responsibility with his life at the very end, with a steady job and prospects to come. He had a fiancé.
I was very disappointed with the funeral service. It started out fine, with the montage playing and sad hiphop songs playing in the background, like that P-Diddy song for Biggy, and a Boyz II Men song.
But then when it came time to start, the music didn't fade out right away. It kept playing as my grandfather started to speak. We all waited patiently for song 15 to start. Nothing happened for three minutes. Grampa started the "funeral discourse" and then the music started! When it started, it was waaaaay too low. No one could sing to it, because it was a reduced tempo version, and not one person could hear over the singing of others. As a result, everyone spoke the song, and had to wait after each verse for the song to catch up, because they were singing too fast. Terrible, terrible start.
So then the "funeral discourse" starts, and by this point, I'm angry. I didn't hear a THING about Philip's likes, dreams, plans, hobbies, etc. Nothing. We know when he was born, and when he moved to San Diego. We know he had nice manners. THAT'S IT. It was, as was to be expected, nothing more than a commercial for the Watchtower Society, as grampa took everyone through scripture after scripture, from Adam to Armageddon. He actually took the time to explain the nature of the death, and why the cow wanted to be in the middle of the road. Terrible.
If I die tragically, I want them to get a boombox in there. Put in some James Brown. Start talking about ME. Don't make it a commercial.
I do not want to die as a JW. The funerals suck. Philip deserved much, much better.