Remembrances and Celebrations

Remembrances and Celebrations: A Book of Eulogies, Elegies, Letters and Epitaphs edited by Jill Werman Harris                   Paperback Book: 319 pages            Genre:  Historical remembrances and odes to famous people and sometimes their pets who were laid to rest alongside the family and letters, eulogies, words of sympathy offered in the passing of family and friends

Really interesting book, not morbid like you would think, but, genuinely filled with emotion, sometimes remorse, sometimes celebration of the person’s life and effect on the deliverer of the kind and sometimes funny memories of lives of consequence.     Dear words for dearly loved ones.     Honestly, the bereaved parents of children who have passed will bring a tear to your eye with their loving words and despair, as will the grief poured out in poetic verse and prayer over martyred men and children but, as joy comes in the morning and the darkest hour means the dawn is in sight (see Psalm 30:5) there are witty and even laugh out loud funny quips, rhymes and brief enlightenments even one blatant salesmanship job engraved in tombstones from the middle ages on down to now.    I enjoyed reading the heartfelt letters sent to the bereaved and the eulogies delivered.   They give you a look into the actual person do the writing/speaking.   Some of the epitaphs here are akin to the salty limericks passed down from sailors over the years.    I can’t help but appreciate the humor or humour delivered in some of the punches actually put on someone’s tombstone for every one to read and laugh over.   One even invited the viewer of the grave to stop and urinate on it before they go, using the slang word for the action so that it rhymed with the sentiment delivered.   Names you will find here are the Kennedys, Jackie Onassis, Malcolm X, Medger Evers,  Abraham Lincoln, C. S. Lewis, Lady Diana former Princess of Wales, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,  Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams,  Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Virginia Wolfe who wrote a goodbye letter to her husband and mother when she could no longer write because the voices in her head had gotten too loud so she simply put heavy rocks in her pockets and walked into the water and drowned herself.    There is much background information included in very short digestible bits on what was actually going on at the time and the relationship to the writer or orator involved.   The names will come to life when you learn of their love,  respect and deep compassion for the ones they eulogize, the letters bearing their own utter despair or fond memories of the departed soul to the ones left behind.    There is so much comfort here that is offered to those in mourning, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson,  Herman Hesse, James Michener, Edgar Alan Poe, Langston Hughes, Ozzie Davis, Bishop Desmund TuTu, The Ghandis.   The poem, “Funeral Blues,” by W.H. Auden, resurfaced and gained much attention after being read in the film, “Four Weddings and a Funeral” is included here.  T.S. Elliot,  Dashiell Hammett, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Dame Agatha Christie, Mammy Caroline Barr who raised William Faulkner and his siblings  whom they loved as their mother and wrote on her tombstone, “Her white children bless her.”  Henry Miller praises Anais Nin,  Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, Yitzhak Rabin eulogized by King Hussein.   Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is eulogized by both ReverendRalph D. Abernathy and David Dinkins, Ogden Nash, Daniel Webster, George Burns, who lived to be 100 years old, too bad he didn’t get to do that last stint in Vegas before he left this world.   Laurence Olivier, Karl Marx, Jerry Garcia, Jackie Robinson whose eulogy was delivered by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, so many wonderful and bittersweet stories told here.   Not so melancholy honestly, just wait till you get to those hilarious ditties in the epitaphs section, some so honest they talk about a lady who let’s just say had been a “working (the streets) gal” in her day whoever paid for her tombstone described how many times she had been “tapp’d” over the years – yikes!  Frank Oz delivered Jim Henson’s moving tribute.   Horace Greely, George Bernard Shaw, Leonard Bernsein..    This book is truly a who’s who of the dead set.    It is actually a good read, I come away from this book feeling I have a better understanding of many historical and contemporary figures inner character.   I did enjoy this book and I would highly recommend it to adults who do not  have qualms with the topic of death.   I would not recommend it to young people while it isn’t harsh, I think some of the emotions expressed and the deep despair poured out in places might be a bit overwhelming for the tender-hearted and those not touched, yet, by the sorrow of losing someone.   Those who have undergone the loss of loved ones will find kindred spirits here and understand their pain and their hope for tomorrow.    Excellent book.   Well done Jill Weman Harris.   I end with one of the ditties on Dr. Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury (1736) has on his tombstone/plaque,  “Alack and well a-day, Potter himself is turned to clay.”   You can’t make this stuff up.  J