How to say goodbye to a matriarch?
It was a predictably sweltering summer funeral. On a humid August night at a small church in rural Mississippi, hometown folks and faraway folks lined up around the brick building with all their expected politeness to say goodbye to Mrs. Jeanette Fulmer. Visitors were kept company by stunning flower arrangements whose colors and shapes exuded botanic defiance to their purpose for being there. Over 700 entries filled the guest book by 9 pm.
The Fulmer family returned the next morning and set aside any weariness that had crept on them since her passing 5 days before. They greeted each mourner with handshakes, hugs, and wholesome hearts. This would be no place for endless sorrow today.
What followed was a treasure trove of anecdotes, jokes, life lessons, singing, and fellowship. We shared laughs and tears of heartbreak, admiration, and self-reflection. If a person’s entire lifetime could be distilled into an hour and half, Jeanette’s devoted sons were the charismatic, ringside biographers to make the magic possible. Only they could rightfully and dutifully weave a rich and steadfast vision of legacy for those of us graced to be occasionally in her orbit.
10 January 1952 - 3 August 2025
Mrs. Jeanette Fulmer, the matriarch of our homestead, will be remembered for her laughter, tenacity, steadfast faith, and welcoming spirit.
After standing in the searing sun for a short but sweet graveside ceremony, we all gathered again to celebrate with food. Naturally. We would have been admonished as proper Southerners had we neglected this necessary ritual of healing through nourishment.
For some, the collective catharsis lasted into the night. Seldom seen friends and new friends seized the opportunity to nurture what makes the solo bookends of birth and death so punctuated—it’s the in-between of not being alone. Tonight being together meant more than ever.
These life experiences are not only to be transformative for the heroine of the tale. When you are invited to a funeral, you are called to remember both the brevity and extensiveness of time, both the profound and the trivial each task, both the mundane and the novel of every encounter—all of which give substance and meaning to the beginning, middle, and end of your story. You are implicitly permitted to reckon with your own past, present, and future self. Take stock, reimagine, start with acceptance, chart a fresh course, or maybe know contentment for the first time.