A mission
I have been rolling this around in my head for a while, and the untimely and horribly premature death of Carla Spires has sort of brought this to a head.
I have been called upon to be a pallbearer at a fairly large number of funerals, some of people I didn’t particularly know well. I have seen that a lot of the time, people die without enough people to do the job. I have been thinking of starting a little organization, of groups of men across America, who will volunteer to bear pall for those who don’t have anyone else to do so, for those who have such small families that they cannot gather enough people to bear pall or for those with sufficient grief that the additional responsibility at that time is just too much.
This would be voluntary, and the men who do this must be drilled like a precision rifle team, and they must do their job with dignity and without comment.
Any thoughts, folks? Would you join such a group? Would you like to train such a group? No money should ever change hands. No comment means you carry the bodies of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with the same dignity as Carla Spears- or your dad. I want to do this, I want this idea to catch fire. I want people to do this for others. It’s a worthy mission, I think.
21 comments Og | Uncategorized

I’d do it. It’s about human dignity, even at the end.
It’s a hell of a noble idea.
Be Ok with me, as long as my carrying side was my left side.
I suspect that the reason you get tapped for this is because you are large, and strong?
Sounds like a great idea, Og.
Sounds sorta like being a volunteer fireman.
It’ll need a catchy name. Got one yet?
That is altogeter a truly worthy project. I think it would have to be done locally, probably through the local undertakers organization. (Do funeral directors have an organization?)
Regardless, it is an absolutely fine idea.
Damn fine idea. I’m in.
Same here. I’m surprised no-one thought of it before.
One of the hardest tasks associated with my father’s funeral was finding enough cousins with suits and day off to be pall bearers. It didn’t occur to any of us to start asking until shortly before the funeral and it was a very difficult thing to ask. As the family ages the task will just get harder. It would have been nice to know that there were a few men willing to step in should we have need of them.
Most excellent idea.
It’s a fantastic idea Og. Let me know, and I’ll sure help spread the word….
I know that some funeral homes will help out when there aren’t enough able bodied men at the funeral. But I’m sure this happens far more often than not in today’s world.
You could organize groups that would get in touch with local funeral homes.
Very thoughtful idea Og.
It’s funny- I’ve been asked a number of times to perform this final tribute, of sorts, mostly by cousins & such. It always seemed to me that it was a ritual to be performed with honor, making no judgments on the deceased (privately or otherwise), and a, well, PRIVILAGE of making the final earthbound journey with the deceased.
I don’t know how you’ll organize it by locality, but if you figure it out, I’m in.
If only this little thing called attendance wasn’t so darn important to the suits at work, I’d be in in a heartbeat. It’s a fine and noble idea.
My husband and I are both in. ;)
I’ve been a pallbearer exactly once – at Dad’s funeral, so take my comments as at best, inexperienced, and at worst, cold-hearted.
And, in my first pall-bearing experience, it fell to me to organize the pallbearers.
I had exactly the opposite problem – too many men who expected to be Daddy’s final “Honor Guard”. Wound up with two walking ceremoniously, one ahead, and one behind, so I didn’t leave out the men who would have been hurt by being excluded from this duty to a man they called friend and respected.
That’s the kind of mark Dad left on the world, and on the people he met.
Personally, I’ll serve as a pallbearer if asked, as in for a close friend burying a family member, or for someone I was close to and/or respected. Otherwise, I think people touched by, or close to, or related to the deceased should have that honor/duty.
And if someone dies and doesn’t have six relatives and/or friends willing to be his or her final Honor Guard?
Well… maybe that person doesn’t deserve a Guard of Honor. This is the cold-hearted part.
If you can’t touch six human beings in your lifetime, such that they will be willing to perform your final escort, maybe you don’t deserve one.
I’m using Daddy’s funeral as an example here: He never had a LARGE circle of close friends, but I met people for the first time there, people he’d worked with who respected him, and took time of to pay their last respects to a man who’d been laid off more than a year earlier.
If someone can’t leave a mark on just SIX people, maybe they need to be cremated, so only ONE can carry the ashes.
Sorry if this offends anybody, but people really need to think about what impact they’re having on the people around them, and if it’s positive or negative.
Og’s Dad, it seems like, left a positive mark on many people. Not necessarily people he called “Friend”, just someone who’s life he touched. Daddy did the same thing, and in both cases, it was by being a man who lived by good principles, and people noticed.
We should all strive to follow in their footsteps, and I’m not sure we should accord the same honor to people who don’t as we do for those who live up to the high standards set by those great men who have gone before us.
Again, personal opinion only, no offense intended. Except to those who live so meaninglessly that they leave a mark on no-one… they can go ahead and be offended.
Aaron, you need to get right with the world. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m going to explain why.
First of all, everyone deserves dignity, no matter what. Period. You don’t live your life showing dignity to others? Especially to those you don’t think deserve it?you have missed the point entirely. If our Creator judges us based only on what we deserved, we’d all be in BIG trouble.
Second: When dad was buried, when uncle Richard was buried, and when uncle Calvin was buried, there were, in the same funeral home, at the same time, WW2 veterans. They were carried to their graves by undertakers or on carts. Did they live lives where they touched nobody? Absolutely not. Why did they die alone then? they simply outlived everyone they knew. And you are trying to say they don’t deserve the dignity of six honorable men? This probably happens once a day in every major funeral home. Trust me, I have been to enough funerals (hundreds!) to know this is true. I like you, Aaron, and I respect you. You need to get your head right, because on this subject, it is not right. I expect your father would agree with me, which is what made him the man he was.
I’ve been bearing pall since I was about 16. In that time I’ve done it for family, friends, and even people I barely knew, but whose lives impacted on mine. In the end, all God’s children deserve to be carried by six.
My dad got his pall bearers, but in the event, he didn’t get his military honor guard. I understood that — too many WWII vets dying, not enough honor guard personnel to go around. But out of the two or three hundred who attended his funeral, there was no chance he wouldn’t have gotten his pall bearers, even on a cold, icy, windy day in January. I decided long ago that it was more important that six carried him than seven fired a salute and one played Taps.
In all his life, Dad wouldn’t have seen why anyone else deserved any less, and I don’t either.
While he didn’t get the honor guard and salute, he did get his flag. I presented it to my mother myself, saying, “This is given with the thanks of a grateful nation.”
OK, now I have to go sit alone for a while.
“…not because they are Christians, but because we are.”
Count me in.
Og,
The local Knights of Columbus (and I’m certain other similar organizations) will provide pall bearers if they are contacted
Dennis
I will do this.