I burst into tears the other day at a friend’s funeral.
This might not seem so odd. And indeed, I had been teary-eyed off and on through the service and party (he was a fun guy who loved a good party, so of course we had a party in his honor). What was odd was the thing said that made me cry.
To set the scene, the funeral was a viking/pagan funeral in accordance with my friend’s beliefs about life and death, and the party was at a local brewery and included live music and belly dancing performed by his friends. His daughter was telling me about her home town, and how closed-minded and fundamentalist it is, and how her family started out deep in that shit and how creepy it was. When she had told her boss and co-workers the plans they had for her dad’s funeral, everyone was speechless.
I live in a small midwestern town. I don’t think of us a cultural hub, but apparently we’ve got something going on here. Lots of live music, artists and art fairs, authors, dancers, pagans and a UU church, a fabulous LGBTQ community.
Stuff that my friend didn’t have growing up. Stuff he didn’t have as an adult. Stuff he and his wife didn’t have until they retired and moved here.
“You know what got them out of the church, and got them thinking in different directions?” his daughter said to me. “Reading. Literature. It started with the Chronicles of Narnia, which led to the Shannara books, which led to The Lord of the Rings. Reading those fantasy stories really showed them that there was more to life, and more to living, and other ways of thinking. That’s what got us out of that awful church and into the way we live now. Books.”
And I fucking burst into ridiculous tears.
I have no idea why.
It wasn’t my books that led them away from a restrictive, closed-minded life. I didn’t hand them The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and tell them “Here. You have to read this.”
A couple years ago (at a party), I had professed to my friend my fears about being a writer and how badly I wanted it and how badly I feared failing. We were both pretty drunk at the time, so what came next didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was said with such passion and conviction, I have held it close to my heart ever since:
“You,” he slurred, “you don’t. Don’t give up. Because. Because.” And he pointed at me. “You. Y’ know?”
And we drank some more and laughed and I never really forgot that moment.
I guess I didn’t really know at that time how much fiction and reading had touched his life. I knew he and his wife were big readers, and I loved them for it right away. But I didn’t know.
But that wasn’t what I was thinking about when I started to cry. All I heard was that reading fantasy saved their lives, changed them into better, happier people, and I started sobbing like a big baby. It felt like his daughter was telling me that what I was doing mattered, even when I doubted it, even when I couldn’t see it with my own eyes.
But she wasn’t.
Not really. Not me and my writing. Just fantasy in general.
Even now, I’m writing this and thinking about it and I am filled with emotion. I feel like a sacred responsibility to keep going has been set on my shoulders. I’m almost going to cry again.
What is wrong with me?
Or, maybe, I should ask, why does this feel so right?
