GREAT FUNERAL CAREFULLY BLEND DIGNITY, ELOQUENT EULOGY, MUSIC AND GRAVESIDE RITES

This won't be another tribute to my dad. I said my piece Thursday. Besides, the tributes have been sufficiently numerous as to be approaching the point of embarrassment to the family. My experiences of the last week, though, have quickened in me an appreciation for the importance of a great funeral, well-planned and executed. Herewith, some thoughts on the subject.

I have been a student, even a connoisseur, of funerals, a curiosity (eccentricity?) dating from boyhood when at age 10 I watched the unforgettable services for the incomparable Sir Winston Churchill. (That broadcast was one of the first ever beamed around the world live via satellite.) Watching as the queen's horses pulled the caisson, listening to the muffled drums and the horses' hooves on the pavement approaching Westminster Abbey, these little eyes grew wide with awe. If memory serves, Churchill the honorary American citizen had ordered up "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Riveting, from beginning to end. (Anyone have a videotape?)

The art of the eulogy: This is the heart of the matter. I have attended funerals where men of the cloth said either nothing or almost nothing specific about the deceased. More's the pity.

For years I've been a devotee of William F. Buckley Jr., and one of the things that drew me to him, aside from his dazzling virtuosity, was his mastery of eulogy. Buckley's written tributes to his dead sisters, father and mother have all moved me to tears, and his throat-catching tribute to MacArthur -- all are collected in an old paperback I have somewhere -- is a true masterpiece of the genre. Of Buckley's contributions to the art of the eulogy, Norman Podhoretz, himself a brilliantly accomplished writer, once wrote, "Buckley is so good at it, you would choose him above all others." Study him.

All eulogies must strive to capture the essence of the person. The best ones contain at least a touch of humor, as laughter is first cousin to tears. Not everyone will display the light touch with the English language of my nephew, Jimmy Kinder, to say nothing of friends Sam Blackwell, Ken Newton and Peter Hilty. But we can try and, with repetition, improve.

Music: The other essential. An appreciation of the sacred, and of the rich panoply of Christian masterpieces, certainly helps. For a veteran such as my dad, you can't beat the Navy hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save":

Eternal Father, strong to save/Whose arms have bound the restless waves/Who bids the mighty ocean deep/Its own appointed limits keep/Oh hear us when we cry to thee/For those in peril on the sea.

The Marine Band played it at JFK's graveside committal as the pallbearers drew near the grave.

Well-chosen music makes all the difference. With Millie Limbaugh's funeral last March, I was re-acquainted with the unique contribution made by trumpeters. If you can swing it, they add an awe-inspiring, triumphal air unavailable through any other means. We had them Thursday, thanks to Marc Fulgham and old classmate Narvol Randol Jr. Narvol's graveside "Taps," haunting and faraway, was simply perfection.

For a veteran, graveside rites add the finishing touch: The three-gun salute, the folding of the flag, the spit-and-polish, the "From a grateful nation ..." sequence. If possible, bagpipes will leave one and all in tears.

No service is more meaningful, none more edifying, none so unforgettable, as a great funeral. When the times comes, see to it.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.