Dr. Erich Longie
Although the day of the wake and funeral was mainly a blur, I vividly recall several scenes. The first was the huge number of people who joined the procession from Wal-Mart to Crow Hill Recreation Center where the wake was held. There were two fire engines (Joel had recently completed fire fighting training) and literally hundreds of cars in the procession, which were several miles long. The second was the number of people who attended the wake and funeral. Prior to transporting a body to the graveyard, a drum group sings an Honor Song, people view the body one last time and shake the hand of the family members. When the Honor Song was sung for Joel, the number of people from two reservations (Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake) and the town of Devils Lake who filed by the casket, viewed his body, shook our hand, and cried with us was unbelievable. We must have stood for about an hour shaking hands. By that time, I had come to realize my son was special to many, many people although I didn’t quite know why. (I have no idea how many came to the wake and funeral but later when I counted the number of signatures in the guest book, there were over 500.)
Normally the funeral director closes the casket prior to going to the graveyard. When it came time to close the casket, I indicated to her that I wanted to close it. I walked up to the casket; reached in, tucked the star quilt in around him gave him one last kiss and closed the casket. After Joel was lowered into the grave, I took my turn with the shovel and helped cover his grave.
From the moment we lowered Joel in the grave, I made up my mind I would not do anything to distract or lessen my grief for him. Marshall, in a moment of extreme grief told me, “
"They said Joel is happy where he is at, but I know he misses us too, Dad”.
Because I believe our Spirits (my children and I) are somehow connected, Marshall’s comment led me to believe my grief mirrored what Joel was feeling in the Spirit World.
“When my son is happy in the Spirit World, I will be happy in this world,”
I thought, and I did not fear grief after that. I also began to view grief as an extreme expression of love. If grief is actually a form of love, why would I try to lessen it, I reasoned. Therefore, I let my grief continue (openly) unabated for several months and when people began to become concerned, I became secretive.
Next, a year of grieving