Page 13 - THE ENDLESS WAVE | Skateboarding, Death & Spirituality

THE ENDLESS WAVE | PART ONE
Reality Doesn’t Just Bite, It Spits!
Before I start this next chapter, I wanted to preface things with a small warning. The truth is that discussing death and dying can be very diffi- cult for some. Nathan and I are going to hit on some very challenging and somewhat painful ideas over the course of this book. But if you picked up on what I was writing about in Chapter One, I think you’ll do just fine.
The following incident happened about five years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I had been at my job as a funeral director’s assistant for less than a week. It was a blazing hot day in July and I was getting to know my fel- low co-workers. At the cemetery, we had spied someone lurking about 200 feet away. We were told that it was an estranged brother who was not invited to the funeral, but had somehow found out the time and place and was mak- ing his presence known. It created a little bit of intrigue, but none of us were concerned that he would do something to disrupt the funeral.
As this was literally my second or third time attending a funeral at a gravesite, I wasn’t really sure if having a lurker was a normal occurrence or something completely uncommon. It turned out to be something else — it turned out to be completely off the rails. The funeral service took about 30 minutes to finish. The family left the grave and slowly the brother walked up to the grave. He stood in front of the grave and spat on it. Then he said, “I’m glad you’re dead, you f––g c––t.” He promptly left and I stood there with my jaw dropped. As
7