Persephone
12-07-2010, 05:19 AM
We had to attend a funeral this afternoon. It is always sad to do that. Sad over memories of the person who passed on. Sad because you hurt for the spouse and family and friends whom you know are suffering.
There was a second level of sadness for me because I realized that I never really knew the man very well. I was (and am) a friend of his wife because we have both been members of a women's craft group for many years and because she and I are members of a congregational lady's auxiliary.
As a result, I only saw him occasionally and only for a few moments at a time. The times when our craft group met at their home he wandered through the room perhaps once per meeting, a strange presence among the gathered women, somewhat awkwardly saying "Hi" to everyone, and then moving on to his "man cave."
Once, when he was already very ill, we saw them at a restaurant, stopped by their table and chatted for a few minutes. Since I am her friend, I likely chatted more with her than with him.
From the eulogies and speeches at the funeral I found out that he had some common interests with my male self, something that I never knew. Perhaps he would have been friends with my guy self. Knowing that I really only saw him as "her husband" was a strange and sad feeling.
For me, there was another unpleasant consequence of the day. Like me, she is really affiliated with two congregations. Only I tend to be more "the guy" in one of them and am "en femme" in the other one (although some there remember me from my drab days).
Because of her dual connection, there was a considerable overlap in attendance at the funeral. Which left me unsure of myself, and guaranteed the sort of complexity that makes me very uncomfortable.
Certainly, it wasn't my place to disrupt any part of the solemnity of the funeral. The best I could do was moderate androgyny.
In addition to feeling sad for my friend and for the family, I also felt out of place and uncomfortable. I was a member of neither world, but particularly not a member of girl world.
I noticed that while some of the women greeted me somewhat comfortably, others seemed to act as if I wasn't there. Perhaps it was just that I had the same transparency, the same insignificance, that any male does in girl world, or perhaps it was a useful pretend for them, one that will best allow us to slip back into femme friendship when next we get together.
Either way, it was both sad . . . and lonely.
There was a second level of sadness for me because I realized that I never really knew the man very well. I was (and am) a friend of his wife because we have both been members of a women's craft group for many years and because she and I are members of a congregational lady's auxiliary.
As a result, I only saw him occasionally and only for a few moments at a time. The times when our craft group met at their home he wandered through the room perhaps once per meeting, a strange presence among the gathered women, somewhat awkwardly saying "Hi" to everyone, and then moving on to his "man cave."
Once, when he was already very ill, we saw them at a restaurant, stopped by their table and chatted for a few minutes. Since I am her friend, I likely chatted more with her than with him.
From the eulogies and speeches at the funeral I found out that he had some common interests with my male self, something that I never knew. Perhaps he would have been friends with my guy self. Knowing that I really only saw him as "her husband" was a strange and sad feeling.
For me, there was another unpleasant consequence of the day. Like me, she is really affiliated with two congregations. Only I tend to be more "the guy" in one of them and am "en femme" in the other one (although some there remember me from my drab days).
Because of her dual connection, there was a considerable overlap in attendance at the funeral. Which left me unsure of myself, and guaranteed the sort of complexity that makes me very uncomfortable.
Certainly, it wasn't my place to disrupt any part of the solemnity of the funeral. The best I could do was moderate androgyny.
In addition to feeling sad for my friend and for the family, I also felt out of place and uncomfortable. I was a member of neither world, but particularly not a member of girl world.
I noticed that while some of the women greeted me somewhat comfortably, others seemed to act as if I wasn't there. Perhaps it was just that I had the same transparency, the same insignificance, that any male does in girl world, or perhaps it was a useful pretend for them, one that will best allow us to slip back into femme friendship when next we get together.
Either way, it was both sad . . . and lonely.