What do you do when someone dies.( in place of prayer.)

[PassingFair]

30. Resurrected from my journal...when my brother died in 2011

Posted by PassingFair in Atheists and Agnostics Group
Wed Oct 12th 2011, 08:03 AM
Church memorial service was unsatisfying.

Piper was nice, but he was memorialized by
a minister that he didn't know, and who obviously
didn't know him.

Not very comforting to hear that whosoever
believeth in him shall have everlasting life,
when whosoever didn't believeth in him at all...

Afterwards, an old friend of his had us all come
out to his cottage on the bay, and we had a HUGE
bonfire. Some of his belonging were bundled up in
a shroud and placed on the fire/pyre,
including the clothes he died in and
models of a viking longboat and a Roman trireme that
he had built years ago. His gamer friends filled the
boats up with lead minis.

Then we all wrote notes to him on little bamboo
boats, which we either set out onto the bay or threw
into the fire. His favorite songs were played throughout.

I cried through the whole thing, but it was a fitting
ceremony for a passionate and uncommon guy.

My mother was upset that everyone felt comforted by
"viking beliefs" but not the christian ones. I had to
tell her that the fire ceremony was about KEITH, but
that the church ceremony had been about Jesus. That no one
"believed" that the notes were going straight to Vahalla
to be read by Keith, but were a personal way to say
GoodBye to Keith. She'll never get it, because she
believes he's "up there" with Dad. I certainly don't argue
with her on that, whatever makes her feel better is OK
with me. (And I don't claim to know whether or not he
is anywhere, anymore.)

Now if I can only get "Stairway to Heaven" out of my
HEAD!!!! It appears that there's a bustle in my hedgerow,
and it won't stop.