Dead
End
This is the sign which appeared at the end of a cul-de-sac, the entry of which meets up with Main Street in Culver, Indiana. Not an unusual sign by any stretch of the imagination, certainly one utilized in most towns and cities across our nation. Yet, what makes this one sign stand out in a way others like it cannot mimic is the fact that the employees of the City Street Department of Culver chose to post the sign next to Bonine Funeral Home.
Granted, the sign was posted at the point where Culver's Main Street makes a 90 degree turn to the East - and to proceed straight ahead means that you enter a very short cul-de-sac serving two homes and the garage of the funeral home, still, posting a Dead End sign literally next to Bonine Funeral Home gave no end to all sorts of quips and smart-aleck remarks to be endured by Jim Bonine, the proprietor of Bonine Funeral Home.
I was prompted to recall this sign, posted twenty years ago in my ministry, when I was recently asked, "What is an appropriate age for children to go to a funeral home?"
First of all, is there some sort of aura around ministers that make them the experts on how people will react in a funeral home, regardless the age? Secondly, what is it that we fear children might experience in a funeral home? Death? Life? Questions? Grief? It's makes me wonder.
When I was a child, growing up in the rural Marissa, Illinois area meant that: 1) you were related to nearly everyone in the area; 2) even if you weren't related to them, you or your parents knew nearly everyone in the area; and 3) you learned very early in age that death is just as much a part of life as living itself is. Mom and Dad did not have the luxury of dropping us kids off at some sitter's home while they went to pay their respects to grieving families at Finger Funeral Home. Each of us boys were 'properly attired', told to behave ourselves, were packed into the car and driven the 10 minute drive to the funeral home, unpacked from the car and arranged in chronological order, then followed Dad and Mom through the visitation line offering appropriate condolences for our age. Once the formalities were over, we kids sought out other kids our age in the back room of the funeral home and played games while the adults hashed over the tragedy before us. When things were going really well, or when our parents expected to be a long time at the visitation, we kids were given a couple of dollars each and allowed to go next door to the movie theatre and catch the latest flick on the big screen. Secretly, I think, most of us kids prayed for long visitations, not that we wished any ill-will on any of our favorite relatives, but a long visitation for our parents meant the treat of a good movie for us kids - and, yes, this is back in the day when a movie theatre was a place where you didn't have to worry about what might happen to your children. The Mars Theatre in Marissa was a safe place to be when one was tending to the issues of death next door.
I don't recall ever having issues with death or of having to go through a funeral home when I was a young boy - and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that my parents never made it an issue. Like the farm on which I was raised and the cattle for which I cared, human life on this earth is not forever. The pastors in the church we attended every Sunday kindly reminded us of that on a regular basis: "Keep your heart right before God for you never know when your day to stand before God will occur." The 'farm kid translation' of which is: Behave! Tomorrow might be your day to be shipped out with the old cows to market! (Crude, but accurate.) It has just never bothered me, nor has it ever occurred to me that life on this earth is permanent.
Maybe that's the issue of the Dead End sign posted next to the funeral home: for too many people today, the sign states an accuracy with which they are incredibly uncomfortable. Crude jokes and smart-aleck comments mask the underlying truth of what is known and understood about death, which is what prompts the question of pastors about at what age it is appropriate for children to attend visitations in the funeral home.
In the moment we begin to attend to the eternal nature of life in God, the transient nature of life in this world is shaped with a far different meaning, robbing the Dead End sign next to the funeral home of its power. Perhaps if parents spent more time talking with their children about the wonders of life and the power of the One who gives life, they would find themselves less perplexed about the questions of death and the timing of adolescent visitation to death's presence among us.
The Dead End sign was removed a mere couple of weeks after being erected, mostly because the funeral director grew quickly tired of the harassment he was receiving every time he stopped by the local restaurants for coffee, prompting him to request of City Council that the sign be removed. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if folks in town, after smirking at the initial irony of the sign's location, didn't want the Dead End sign taken down as well. Sometimes irony prompts deeper questions of ourselves than we are prepared to answer. Better no sign at the end of the street than one which might provoke our children to ask what it means.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
