on funerals

My uncle passed away this past thursday.
Sunday morning at noon i boarded a train to penn station, then got on the LiRR to huntington to get picked up by my dad. Ate pizza, and got to the church at 6:15.
Left the church at 11.
My dad decided to drive me back instead of taking a train in the morning. Drove from 12am until 3:30. I just finished my physics homework. I'll be going to bed for 3 hours shortly.

Basically, My entire sunday and the first 4 hours of monday have been spent getting to, going to, and coming back from my uncle's funeral.

It was entirely worth it.

The church had a pretty good size sanctuary.
It was absolutely jam-packed. 1500 people came out to the service.
My mom, my other uncle, and my cousin gave speeches.
I learned a lot about him that i never knew.
I also learned this:
His dying wish was that his entire family would be saved.

My uncle's speech turned into a salvation message.
After the pastor gave a sermon, he gave a call for salvation, and about 25 people answered that.

I never got a chance to really get to know my uncle that well, and i'm regretting that. He wasn't a pastor, he owned an auto shop with his brother. But his influence on the community was enormous. His funeral saved 25 people. That's wild.

The pastor then compared death with physical birth.
After 9 months of being in the womb, we simply can't stay in there any longer. We have to bust out of it and experience real life, not the safety of the inside of Mom. I think that's a cool way to think about death from a christian perspective. After 18 years of lymphoma in and our of remission, and after 2 months of leukemia, my uncle needed to bust outta here. From the stories i've heard, from the pictures i've seen, he lived at least 3 lives' worth on earth. He needed to get out of here and go hang out with Jesus in real life.

I had more to say but my 8am calc quiz is in 4 hours. and this kitchen smells disgusting.