In case you don’t know, the direction your deceased relative is buried is a big deal!
It was a big deal for my father…. Francis Ray Smith…. better known as F. Ray, or Ray by most of his friends.
He was way ahead of the “pre-need” movement by funeral homes and had carefully plotted out the highest point at Lakewood Memorial Park. There, he purchased seven lots for our family…years in advance of our even being married.
Attached to our deed for the lots was a sketch, complete with “stick men” lying in their graves, notating the instructions “all to be buried facing east.”
(The reasoning behind his directional demands will follow shortly.)
My mother passed away in October of 1999. Since my dad was alive and in charge, her funeral and burial went off without a hitch.
Two years later, after a brief illness, my dad passed away and my brother and I assumed the sacred responsibility of ensuring a memorable service and flawless execution of the internment.
Everything seemed to have gone smoothly. We received many compliments of our memorial service arrangements, including my pastor, Dr. Frank Pollard, performing the service, music by a large men’s ensemble from our choir, and having “Happy Trails to You” played over the sound system as the casket was rolled out to the “funeral coach.” (It is not cool to use the term “hearse” these days by funeral directors.)
We even had a biracial and mixed gender group of pallbearers, including my female business partner, Pete Mapp, and Glenn Cavett, an elderly Black gentleman in the truest since of the word that had worked with us at Barefield & Company for years as a devoted delivery team member.
The compliments flowed in…. even from the funeral directors.
I have been accused of having an unhealthy fascination with the funeral home industry. This is OK, since one of my high school aptitude tests revealed becoming a funeral director was one of my top-five career considerations.
A few weeks following Daddy’s funeral, my wife and I had some friends over for dinner and I began a lengthy “mocking” of the fake empathy I felt from the funeral home directors.
“Oh, Mr. Smith…what a wonderful service you planned…so unusual.”
He continued…” Your father was such a great planner…purchasing lots in the highest point of Lakewood and all strategically facing east.”
Suddenly, I stopped talking and thought for a second about the situation at the final resting place.
Several of Daddy’s pallbearers were there and I suggested we reconstruct their movements from the time we rolled out Daddy’s casket from the old Baldwin-Lee on Robinson Road in south Jackson.
Daddy had an American flag on his casket. The stars always go over the deceased’s head.
“Y’all rolled Daddy out of the chapel with the stars on the flag facing the double doors that led to the covered porch.”
“You turned left and rolled Daddy into the “funeral coach.”
“When we got to the cemetery you drug him out, turned right, and stumbled up the hill to the open grave.” “You set him down and moved into your mourning positions.”
“I guess so,” the replied.
“Y’all done buried Daddy the wrong direction!”
Reconstructing in my mind, this move placed his head directly in front of the granite marker he had already bought years earlier.
It also revealed that he was actually facing WEST!
(Let me hasten to say that NONE of this was the fault of the “bearers” as funeral types like to refer to them…. pallbearers are SO yesterday.) It was clearly the fault of the cemetery grave diggers and the funeral home brigade.
For the sake of brevity, I will leave out all the gory details that ensued over the following few weeks with negotiations with the cemetery and the funeral home to resolve the issue.
I was finally asked…. “what do you expect us to do about it?”
My response….“He’s gotta come up.”
After lengthy heated discussions and threats of litigation that this had driven me to the point of insanity knowing that I had not honored my Dad’s wishes, we came to an agreement that Lakewood would in fact “turn him around.”
One beautiful spring day, my wife and I arrived at the gravesite at the appointed time. A backhoe was already in place and the operator sat waiting for us.
“What’s this all about,” he asked.
“Well, when Jesus returns, he will come from the East with the shout of the trumpet and the dead in Christ will meet him in the air.”
It appears that my dad was buried facing west instead of east.
The backhoe guy responded, “don’t nobody know when Jesus is coming.”
“Well, I can tell you when He ain’t coming.”
“He ain’t coming for the next 30 minutes until we get this fixed.”
Sure enough, peering into the grave I found that the nameplate on Daddy’s vault, which is placed over the deceased person’s head, was in fact facing west.
After a few minutes of attaching chains to the vault, performing a 180, and then carefully lowering the vault back down, the mission was accomplished.
Now…in full disclosure, I have copiously studied the “facing east” tradition.
First Thessalonian 4:15-17 clearly speaks of the Second Coming of Christ is clearly presented by Paul the Apostle.
But, sorry to tell folks like my dad…. Facing east is just a tradition. Even pagans centuries ago insisted on facing east toward the rising sun.
So, now you know.
I know a guy with a backhoe should you have the desire to make things right with a long-buried friend, relative, or acquaintance.
Kendall Smith is a Northsider.
