Reply #9: Yes, I have given quite a few, most of them in churches [View All]

[Rhiannon12866]

That seems to be my role in my family. When my uncle died, his daughter stood up and gave a reading. I was sitting with my father and he was incredibly impressed that she could do this. So when I lost my own father, at also too young an age, five years later, I tried to do her one better, by getting up and speaking to a packed church about my Dad. I guess I was still trying to make him proud of me. I mainly talked about something that business associates and political acquaintances wouldn't have known, about how much my father loved animals.;(

It must have gone over well, since everyone wanted to speak to me about it, afterwards, and, ever since, at family funerals, I'm expected to speak. I was even expected to do it twice for my grandmother and twice for my aunt, since there was more than one service for each of them. I always feel nervous, but focus on what I'm saying and not how I feel, so I won't totally lose it. *sigh*;(