I have some personal habits about funerals. For one thing, I never start to think about what to say at a funeral until someone has actually died. Years ago, I started trying to compose my thoughts between hospital visits as someone was dying, and instantly reproached myself. I was mentally moving on while the person was still living, and that would affect the way I related to her. I also like to meet with the family, especially at the visitation the day before, to soak up the tone. How are people feeling? What are they talking about? It helps me address what needs to be addressed, rather than writing a generic message. The secret to knowing what to say lies in knowing how to listen.
This hesitancy to begin before I'm ready means that I've usually written funerals the night before, once the house is quiet. Well, more and more, I'm finding that I'm just too tired to think properly at the end of a long day. And last night, the house never got quiet; one visiting grandcub was stubbornly refusing to consider sleep, and Deanne kept clumping around on her walker, clank clank, like some trolley going round the neighborhood.
I finally just went to bed and set my alarm for five o'clock. Just before going to sleep, a verse of Scripture came to my mind, a gift from God. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and hit the sheets. The alarm went off this morning, but I didn't spring out of bed. It took me forty-five minutes to finally get my body moving. But I made it. Warmed over the coffee still in the pot from yesterday. And sat down in the quiet of the morning at my computer.
And now, I'm done. God is faithful. I praise him for it.