Religion

 I went to two funerals on my trip to California. We buried my sister on Friday. She had chosen her funeral program (the music) while she was still lucid, about 10 or 11 years ago.  

On Monday, my brother, mom, and I drove to Palo Alto for the service for my aunt Mona Jo, in an architecturally similar Mormon church there. I had been in that church for a service for Orval (husband of Mona Jo and brother to my mom, twelve years ago). We sang one of the same hymns, "All Creatures Great and Small."  My four Ellsworth cousins (son and daughters of Mona Jo and Orval) had driven to Davis for my sister's service as well.  There were also four cousins from one of my mom's sisters, Dorothy. Dorothy is seven years older than I am and my youngest cousins could the age of my children, if I had had children young. 

Anyway, most people there at both funerals were processing the deaths through a religious mind set--one I don't share. My sister was also deeply religious, and spent her entire professional life as a church musician, or "minister of music." Her husband Norbie had also converted to mormonism, fairly recently in fact. Mona Jo, from all evidence, was also religious. 

Though I don't have that framework, I tend to believe that we are all processing our grief in analogous ways. In other words, it doesn't make any difference. It is still a loss. We can all have our little rationalizations, like 'she's in a better place.'  Or, in my case, 'her suffering is over.'