Pain of Utilitarianism

This past weekend, I took an impromptu, two-day trip to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. As soon as I exited to the plane on Thursday night at 11:41 pm, my legs became heavy as if the marrow in my bones began to freeze. I slug through the terminal, exhausted from the day filled with class and travel, and exit the airport to  meet my dad’s Honda Pilot. I toss my carry-on suitcase into the trunk, and as I walk to the passenger-side door, a cold breeze between runs down my spine with the discomfort of nails clawing a chalk board.
Friday night was even more frigid. Armies of snowflakes battled through the air. I stumbled gingerly through the wintry mix-- hoping not to get caught in the crossfire of the mini-blizzard-- and barely spotted the white door to Original Harvest Missionary Baptist Church.
I walk into the door hesitantly and enter a waiting room. I’m 10 minutes tardy. I tuck in my purple shirt, straighten up my purple tie, grab a program with the picture of my aunt and the words “Kimberly Burch-Lawson” stretched across the lower third of the paper in Lucida Handwriting font. Seeing the pamphlet with her face decorating the front causes the emptiness of my heart to suck the happiness from my soul like a black whole ripping away life from the cosmos. She really isn’t with us any more.
I reach the far side church and sit adjacent to my God mother on a pew. I sit there for an hour straight. An hour filled with frustration, sorrow, regret, emptiness, and more frustration. My frustration stemmed from the manner in which the service was dealt with. The service seemed less of a celebration of my aunt’s life and more of a stereotypical black church setting. People were clapping, pastors were yelling and making pop culture references, music paraded out of the overheated church and marched into the parking lot and street surrounding the church building, men and women were praise dancing through the isles, and people danced and rejoiced in the glory of God with each new section of the service. Now notice, I write the glory of God and rejoicing for God. With no disrespect, where was the focus on my Aunt? Where was the celebration of my aunt? She was barely mentioned or spoken about. She was only mentioned when it was convenient to push the Christian agenda of speaking of how mighty and wonderful God truly is. It seemed that everyone in the room forgot the true purpose of us flying hundreds of miles and driving through blizzards. That purpose wasn’t God but rather my wonderful aunt Kimberly Burch-Lawson.
This experience and accompanying frustration truly had me questioning the entire concept of utilitarianism-- doing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. For the majority of the people at the funeral service, this was the greatest thing for them. They only had superficial, loose relationships with my aunt. These relationships were forged at the church, so they only knew my aunt as Sister Kim, the great, god loving and fearing woman. They didn’t know her as a mother of 3, grandmother of four, sister of 3 (2 of whom are deceased), etc. They didn’t know her as the woman who grew up on Griffing avenue and eventually moved into the gray house directly across the street from her parents and my grandparents. They only knew her in the church setting.
For the members of the family that traveled to the church, whether by car for 10 minutes or plane for 3.5 hours, the service was poorly done. It didn’t do her justice and didn’t help spread and convey her awesomeness and beautiful legacy. It only conveyed God’s awesomeness and legacy. This imbalance of attention started out as annoying but gradually became exasperating. Further, it didn’t do the most good for the few who needed and deserved that good the most-- the family of my aunt and my aunt herself.