As much as we all want to believe that ceremonial acknowledgements of death are celebrations of life, I think it's safe to say that they are typically referred to more fondly than they actually feel in the moment. Much like everyone reading this, I have been to more wakes and/or burials than I would prefer and - no matter how alleviating the reminiscing can be at times - the somberness of the atmosphere dampens the mood to something significantly less than you might expect from honorary festivities. Not that there's anything wrong with family and friends modestly cloaking themselves in black to damn near silently offer a final goodbye to a loved one. That said, I don't think I'm alone in saying that - prior to watching a pulsating procession in the name of the man they called Mr. B. - I have never been dealt FOMO from the collective paying of homage to someone I have never met in person. So, all due respect to everyone that's ever arranged a funeral that didn't include thousands of people marching through the street to the beating of a city's heartbeat, but what everyone even mildly associated with his extensive Saints/Pelicans family did for Tom Benson was truly celebrate his life. It was genuinely New Orleans, as was the person it loudly, proudly, and merrily memorialized.
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