Parades and Funerals
It seems like all I ever go to New Orleans for is funerals. Last time it was my step-grandmother, and now her husband has followed. Even getting remarried didn’t save him from dying three years after losing his wife of forty years. And his new wife Mary has known her share of loss, saying farewell to yet another man she loved. People get old and they die. God takes care of the rest.
The Saints are in the Super Bowl today, an exciting and historic event, and Mardi Gras season is in full swing. We head out for the crescent city on Thursday, and the town will be filled with jubilation even if the Colts win the ball game. But we go to mourn.
I have never known a kinder man than Alan Temple Sparkman. He loved so much he had eight different wives in his lifetime. When he married my grandmother and adopted her son, it was the best thing that ever happened to my dad. Pop taught him one of the most valuable lessons in life. He taught him about love, honor and respect, and these are things my dad passed on to his own children.
With so many divorces and marriages, there must be casualties along the way. Broken homes are like sunken ships with the survivors grasping hold of flotsam and swimming for far reaching islands, surviving yet searching for ways back home, often unable to bridge the miles between them.
My father and his younger brother both met and married women from unbroken families and built their own sturdy islands of honored marriage vows and children who stay close beyond the miles. They learned love, honor and respect, and they also learned from a few of their father’s mistakes.
So we will have our own funeral parade, our headlights on, weaving through Mardi Gras traffic, as life and celebration roll on. Farewell honored husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, friend.
February 7th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
That was beautiful. Thank you for writing it.
Love, Mom
February 7th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Thank you. That was beautiful. Joannie