You have reunions at the beach, and you have them at Christmas, and you might have some random one in May or September at an old homeplace, with chairs scattered in the shade of ancient oaks, peel-off name tags on a nearby table. And while there’s no theme, no cheery, command-performance invitation, isn’t a funeral a kind of reunion as well? Certainly tragic, too-soon deaths must be acknowledged in any conversation about funerals. When my father died, because I couldn’t manage one more smile, hear one more consoling comment, I retreated upstairs, threw myself across a bed, and counted the wallpaper stripes until I could face people again. Grief-stricken occasions are unavoidable, part of becoming and being an adult.

But just as we’ve all experienced those, we’ve experienced festive funerals, too. Where the recessional isn’t a bagpiped dirge but the Carolina fight song, or a thumping version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Funerals where the eulogy elicits laughter, even applause.

And afterward … well, afterward, there’s a party. A funeral becomes a reunion. It’s not such a stretch. Why, give or take a few letters, the words are almost the same. And here in North Carolina, we do both very, very well.

illustration by Jim Salvati

First off, as with any proper reunion, there’s food — trays and bowls and platters of the gathering goodies we do best: fried chicken and potato salad and ham biscuits. Beans abound: baked beans with molasses, string beans with bacon, baby limas, and three-bean salad. A coconut cake, brownies, and lemon squares, and, if you’re lucky, homemade banana pudding. Jugs of tea, lemonade, Bloody Marys, and beers. A mayo-coated mixture of something orange and purple (radicchio or red cabbage? Carrots? Beets?) that it’s best to steer clear of.

Food is fine, but the definition of “reunion” is “a social gathering attended by people who have not seen each other for some time.” So there are relatives, naturally. The aunt who taught you how to crochet and pinch suckers off tomato plants; the cousin who showed you how to sharpen a pencil with a pen-knife. The godmother who always sent a birthday card with shiny new dimes inside paper slots; the relation whose connection (twice-removed?) you’re not certain of, but who, every Christmas, carefully wrapped and mailed to you something she owned because she couldn’t afford anything else: a serving spoon etched with inscrutable initials, a porcelain compote dish. Items you considered useless at 13, now treasured. The grandmother who brought you a music box from Switzerland, a miniature chalet that played the theme from Doctor Zhivago when the roof was opened to reveal its tinkling, tiny, mysterious innards.

Here, too, are folks who might not qualify as “blood,” but when someone dies, compassion equals kin.

Here, too, are folks who might not qualify as “blood,” but when someone dies, compassion equals kin. The sorority sister, the fellow who always seemed to be in the lane beside you at the Y pool. The colleagues, the caregivers, the coach, the college roommate. The waiter at the favorite Friday night restaurant. A teacher who remembers that essay you wrote on Jane Eyre. Choir and Bible study and garden club members; the bridge and canasta and poker partners. The neighbor you rented an aerator with every fall, heaving its bulk into the truck together, and friends with whom you swapped homemade Christmas gifts of marinara sauce and blackberry preserves. The friend who always made the pound cake, or her famous, along on family vacations.

There’s no funeral reunion without the back-slapping jokester, or the childhood pal with stories of youthful escapades and mishaps, the golf games and fish tales, told and retold. You won’t know everyone, though, so sooner or later you’ll have to nudge someone for whispered info about somebody, just as you did at that high school reunion meet and greet. (“Him? That’s the guy who …”)

Along with the bashful adolescent at their first funeral, unsure how to act, children are always scampering somewhere — sneaking a finger swipe through the cake icing after a reminder to shake someone’s hand hard, not like a limp fish. They’re oblivious to the occasion, and thank heaven for that.

All those people, maybe unrelated, but still, related, who’ve come to share, and therefore belong, and are welcomed with hugs and exclamations of delight. Just like at a reunion.

On my bookshelf is a hilarious, helpful-hint guide to Southern funerals titled Being Dead Is No Excuse. On my computer, alongside files like “Things to Do with Grandchildren” and “Recipes to Try,” I have a “Funeral” document. (Hymns 466, 178, “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” and not the second tune; readings from Isaiah 40, Revelation 21:2-7; no homily.) Is it morbid to plan for what will come? Not to me, because I know there’s a celebration to come, too. Grief is an inevitable human emotion. But there’d be no sorrow without kinship. Kinship begets reunions. And the beating heart of every reunion is joy.