It's just hit me that I think we are all in some state of mourning these days. For real true physical human loss. And for equally real true other loss. Missing people and things. Whether departed from this earth or merely departed from our immediate realm. Leaving grooves and patterns for tear tracks - mostly left un-filled and barren. We rarely give way to those streams -rarely grieve well anymore. It's a necessary but lost art, this practice of mourning. An old friend used to say of her grandmother in decline, "I am trying to mourn her a little every day while she is still with me - so I will know how when she's good and truly gone; and so I will not be overwhelmed by it all at once." Nobody wants to be sad. But what if we need to acknowledge the sadness in order to make the conscious choice to embrace the joy? Spend the tears to purchase the peace? Set up the gravestones to form a foundation for hope?
I had a strange upbringing - didn't know it at the time but in hindsight, it was odd. I was odd. I am odd. Daddy preached a lot of funerals. People trusted him to usher their loved ones into eternity with Holy Scripture and strong words of faith and comfort. I recently remembered an old journal among his belongings I'd stored in a closet - list of names and a section with names and dates and ages listed by year. It didn't make a lot of sense until I compared his notes to Mount Pleasant Cemetery records I found online. He had listed the people for whom he had conducted funeral services. (If you think one of your loved ones might have been on that list, send me a message and I'll check.)
Nothing strange about a preacher doing funerals, it's part of the job description. The unusual part is that it was a family thing. When he preached a funeral, Mama and I went. too - if I wasn't in school. We also went to the visitations at the funeral home the night before. By the time I was in first grade, I had been to countless services. And I made some observations:
Flowers. They used an awful lot of carnations in funeral flowers. To this day, the smell of carnations brings to mind those parlors filled with stands and sprays of pastel flowers - spiky gladiolas, fluffy chrysanthemum, ferns and palm leaves, every gap filled in with a fragrant carnation. Arrangements with red roses scattered in came from those very close to the dearly departed. And pink or blue signified a baby - the saddest ones. The quantity of flowers was in direct proportion to the affection for the deceased. Few flowers meant few friends. Many flowers, much love. That has changed somewhat over the years - families requesting charitable donations in lieu of flowers. It's pragmatic, I know. But the showy flower love made a big impact on little me.
Crying: I seem to remember that there was more crying at funerals when I was a child. And by crying, I mean full-on-cannot-breathe-weeping. Laying over the casket and having to be helped out weeping. Unashamed tears freely flowing down even the most stoic faces. Often accompanied by wailing, sometimes even fainting and being brought back around with an ammonia capsule from the watchful undertaker's pocket. Loud, visible sadness on display. As a child sitting there by Mama, I cried along. Tears coursing down my tiny face as Mama handed me an embroidered handkerchief. And I learned that grief is not a spectator sport - it is communal and vital. I kept as many of Mama's handkerchiefs as I could find when we cleaned out their things (and a couple of Daddy's). And I often find myself dampening those inherited squares of cotton when the sadness spills over. Tears are precious. It says so in the Bible. "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Psalm 56:8 God catches them in a bottle... I catch them in Mama's hankies.
Viewing: It was the custom in most situations to have the casket open at the front of the church all through the funeral. When entering the service, attendees would walk up the aisle and have one last look before finding a seat - maybe one more opportunity to make peace or say goodbye. Tuck a note into the satin lining or breathe a prayer. At the end of the service, the preacher would nod to the undertakers and they would perform the ritual of closing the casket. Moving the flowers, folding the quilted satin inside, closing the raised half-lid and replacing the flowers before rolling the body out to be transported to the gravesite. This closing the casket was often the catalyst for more intense weeping. Last moments. Finality setting in. But. Closure. This part is finished. We have completed this ceremonial bit and now must move out. Move on to the next hard thing. And the next. Until we can go a day - or an hour - without breaking down. And find some way to keep on until it's our day to be mourned and carried away.
Photographs: Now this is where it gets really strange. I don't know if this was just a thing in the part of the world where I grew up, or a thing in older generations, or a thing in my socio-economic stratus, but, my people would take pictures of the deceased in the casket. I have photos of assorted relatives tucked away in a box in storage - of them all laid out surrounded by flowers. Sometimes with family members posing alongside. Black and white folios with fancy-cut edges and plastic comb bindings. Yes, I realize this crosses over into the morbid. And, thank the Lord we've grown out of this peculiarity. As my Mama lay dying, she rolled her eyes over to my Aunt Altus and declared that if she dared to get next to her dead body with a camera she would haunt her from the grave. Undaunted, I caught Altus sneaking around the sanctuary before Mama's funeral with her instamatic in hand and promptly took it away from her. I don't know if she took any pictures but she knew better than to show them to me if she did. Other than further proof that I am a strange woman born of strange people, I don't know what this means. Maybe it prepared me to be graceful with other people's oddities. Or my own. I'd say that's a blessing.
The Monday Girls are doing a Priscilla Shirer study about Elijah. Turns out he was about as backward as my people. From the sticks, not very polished or sophisticated. But his upbringing instilled within him the nature he would need to do the work God had planned. I've been thinking about that - I see myself as odd and awkward in a world full of confident and poised Insta-perfect people. But that is no surprise to God, in fact, I think that is a platform from which he stages his will and work for me. My unusual exposure to the world of funerals and grief at an early age may be a case in point because, you see, as a pastor and now former-pastor I have been called on to conduct several funerals in recent years. Families have looked to me to help them walk through the rituals of death. The experiences of my childhood come back to me as I not only witness but join in the choreography of grief. Together, we dance among the memories and weave together a beautiful testimony of joy among the sorrow. Sweet memories swirl into the sadness so it can be swallowed and life sustained. Laughter punctuates heaviness and lets in enough air to draw breath. Carnations and roses, country songs and hymns, poems and prayers. And tears. They cry. I cry. We cry. And somehow a celebration arises. Awkward and amazing. Costly and painful and beautiful.
For the families who have invited me into your rooms of sorrow, thank you. It is an honor to stand with you in the worst days and dream of the good to come, here and in Glory. I remember you in my prayers. And hold you in my heart. Selah.
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