Conflicted!

I'm so sorry for the losses of so many people whose homes and businesses have been damaged by the storm Tuesday night. I really am.....

Why then do I feel like an undertaker at a high-dollar funeral?...sorry for the death of the nice person being honored, yet, happy that I was the 'funeral home of choice' for the family of the deceased?

That's the 'conflict' we feel as roofers after a combo tornado/hail storm. I guess a lot of other people are conflicted as well....doctors, lawyers, preachers, auto body shops and others.

Nevertheless, I'm going to try to be a little bit more somber when I am asked to re-roof a home or business...I will try to wear my best "behave yourself--wipe that grin off of your face -- you don't go to a funeral to have a good time!" facade. Those were words that my Mom and Dad used to say to my brother and to me when we were kids. The problem was this: after being told not to grin, for a long time after these stern admonitions, whenever we would be told not to grin -- for the life of me I couldn't keep from grinning ---and neither could George. If we so much as glanced at each other, we would both get tickled, and either snicker or snort. You KNOW what happened next! We would get marched out of the auditorium or funeral chapel and be on the receiving end of some well-aimed swats. Gradually we lost our compulsion for grinning when told NOT to grin! We would have little 'talks with ourselves' on the way to the funeral services...the people who had died were not friends of ours -- they were often people we did not even know. How can one expect a little kid to be somber and sad at the passing of a stranger -- especially when one who is young does not really even comprehend death? I think it's asking a lot out of a kid.

Maybe that's where that phrase came from -- "fake it till you make it!"