This song must have
meant something at one time. Now, a bad recording of it is being piped over an inferior
sound system into the stifling closeness of a
funeral parlor. My
uncle lies stretched out in his best suit, looking decidedly
dead, although I have just lied to my
aunt, assuring her that he looks like he's "
sleeping". Everyone sits quietly, looking at their hands; some weep quietly, some
wonder how much longer this horrible song can go on.
The
tenor is singing the song too slowly; as he hits the word "
cherish",
saccharine strings swell up to meet the sentiment. "Cherish the Old Rugged Cross"; few think of the
absurdity that inheres in "cherishing" a
torture device. Or in pumping a dead body full of
preservatives and displaying it in a "parlor".
A priest gives a stiff
eulogy ("...and let eternal light shine upon them..."), another pointless
hymn is rendered by the same recorded tenor ("
Nearer My God to Thee"), and as we file past the body to escape into a late spring rain, none of us seems too eager to
shuffle off this mortal coil and join my uncle and
Christ in glory. The remains of this afternoon, damp and too cold for early
May, are enough for the
living. We're willing to leave the "Old Rugged Cross" for the dead.