Writer Matt Hasenmueller's family. His grandpa is pictured at far right.

While I have never died myself, I have had the unfortunate experience of burying a loved one. Most are familiar with this kind of ceremony, yet it can feel overwhelming in the moment.

Death does something odd to the people around it. It tends to remove rationale from the decision making of those it affects; Grieving minds suddenly tasked with the logistical and emotional burden of planning a loved one’s funeral isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

Death was never a scary topic in my family. Growing up, it was something we talked about with an injection of levity, and maybe some twisted humor. For example: my dad’s 50th birthday party was a “mock funeral” – held with humorous intent, of course. To really pull it off, the party was hosted at an actual funeral home, and a mannequin dressed in my dad’s clothes was sat in a coffin to welcome guests upon arrival. Like I said, levity and twisted humor.

In 2017, my family planned and attended a very different, very real funeral for my grandpa. He suddenly passed away after 90 long years. He was an interesting man, and we never saw eye-to-eye on anything. I am a soft man; He was a hard man.

I don’t blame my grandpa for his hardness. After dropping out of school to make bullets for World War II, he spent the rest of his life working or talking about work. He was a husband, father, farmer, cheesemaker (briefly: he lost a finger on the job, and decided it wasn’t for him), and a veteran.

If you're worried about something going wrong at a funeral, family drama, or if it'll all go as planned, rest assured: I have never been to a funeral where people complained about anything. For example, the pastor's eulogy for my grandpa included factually incorrect information, like how he was a die hard Vikings fan (grossly false). After the funeral, my family only talked about how well everything went.

My grandpa was a very popular man in his small hometown, participating in many social circles and eclectic bunches: gamblers, drinkers, hunters, fishers, and card players. His visitation, held before the actual funeral service, was attended by so many that it lasted an hour longer than was scheduled. His friends, family, and frenemies – hey, after 90 years lived, you’re bound to have a frenemy or two – lined up in and filled the halls of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church to pay their respects.

An important thing to note if you’re hosting a funeral for a loved one is that it’s going to be OK. Cliche I know, but it’s true. There is likely someone on staff free from emotional burden to help with nearly everything the day of. The folks at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church helped our family with every detail, and even told me my shoe was untied before I had to carry my grandpa’s body down the steepest set of church stairs in the Midwest, preventing what would’ve been an imminent disaster. 

If you’re worried about something going wrong at the funeral, family drama, or if it’ll all go as planned, rest assured: I have never been to a funeral where people complained about anything. For example, the pastor’s eulogy for my grandpa included factually incorrect information, like how he was a die hard Vikings fan (grossly false). After the funeral, my family only talked about how well everything went.

I could go on ad nauseam about the things that didn’t “go right” during the funeral: The 21-gun salute that sounded more like collegiate level beat poetry than a hero’s tribute synced in perfect time; The numerous times my cousins and I almost dropped the coffin, burdened by uneven ground and the emotional and physical weight of a loved one encased in solid wood. Not one person mentioned any of the above, and instead praised the beauty of the service.

That’s something humans are uniquely good at, for better or worse – we tend to forget the bad, and only remember the good. Yet I don’t believe the cliche that “time heals all wounds.” I think it’s more complicated than that. The death of a loved one leaves an emotional hole in your heart that can never be filled as it once was. However, as time goes on, our lives become infinitely more complex and our hearts grow to make up for the things lost.

Since his funeral, I’ve thought about my grandpa quite a bit. As a boy, I visited my grandparents monthly. One visit, while I was playing with toy cars on the floor and my grandpa was reading the newspaper, he set it down, looked at me, and said “Matt, the thing they don’t tell you about living a long time is that every time you open the paper, another buddy dies.” My grandpa is back with his buddies now, and I hope we see each other again one day. Maybe, as more time passes, we will finally see eye-to-eye on something.