Pray for the Dead and the Dead Will Pray for You

I am going to a memorial service today for someone I have never met. She used to be head librarian at the school where I work, but she became sick 3 days before I started. Then she passed on 3 weeks later.

I generally don't care much for memorial services anyway, but this one poses a special challenge for me. I want to go out of respect for my coworkers, who were very close to L; but what do I say? It's not as though I have anything personal to share...I wonder what Miss Manners would think.

OK, Miss Manners does not have a website. So I looked at Etiquette Hell, which wasn't really helpful but had some great/terrible stories to tell.

Halfway through these tales of woe, I recalled a funeral service I attended with my ex a few years ago for C, who we met through our friend A, his grown stepson. They were very close, and lived together, along with A's son. C was a wonderful man, who told great stories, cooked for the household, and really held the family together; so it was no surprise that a lot of people attended the service.

There was a non-denominational sermon given by a friend of the family, and then they asked friends to come up and speak a few words, all very standard. But there was this one guy who insisted on speaking even though he didn't know C at all! Worse, he rambled painfully on and on and on about the meaning of death in general, and on the fact that he thought, based on what people were saying at the service, that C was a great guy. He talked for a REALLY LONG time.

Very uncomfortable. So I'll be sure not to do that, yeah.