Is it just me, or is it mildly weird that a thread about a murder has morphed into a chit-chat type thread? I’m not saying it’s wrong, just…a little odd.
Smeghead, it’s probably because there’s not a heck of a lot of concrete information to discuss. At least, that’s what I’m guessing. Plus the combination of me and Qadgop, which always results in terribly offtopic father-daughter interactions.
Anyway, off to the memorial service.
Does not!
Aunt Mip says “hi!”
Well, I left the memorial service early. The microphones weren’t working properly and it was getting really hard to hear the people speaking. I stayed up through the speeches given by three of his fraternity brothers, then came back. I’m listening to some Johnny Cash now. Chris liked country music, so I think it’s appropriate. 
When I die, anybody who lets me be eulogized by a university president gets haunted REAL good.
A student(Brian) in most of my classes my junior year of college committed suicide. I still think about him more often than I probably would if he hadn’t done so. (It’s been about 8 years). Anyway, after the on-campus memorial service for him, a friend and I were discussing the service, in all its “something for everyone” charm. (In other words, a representative of the Jewish students on campus read something Old Testament-y (I’d guess the 23rd Psalm), a representative of the Muslim students on campus read something from the Koran(at least that guy knew Brian) someone else read from Romans 8 and the Roman Catholic Priest associated with the Newman society on campus gave a talk. Since Brian had been active in Newman, that was appropriate. Various other friends also spoke. The neatest part of the service was having the organ played by the head of the department in which Brian had been majoring. (The bunch of us attending together were all surprised to see that our department head was in fact the guy at the organ).
Anyway, the friend whom I was discussing it with decreed that if she died, we were not to allow the administration to have the Koran read at her memorial service. We laughed at her. Memorial services like this are for the benefit of the living, and therefore sometimes contain elements which would not be to the deceased’s tastes. Presumably the funeral, held later that week in Brian’s home town, had more relevance to his life and beliefs and not the needs of the wider community.