Funeral Mass

Here's one of the things I really like about Catholic churches: you can almost always find a portrayal of a heartbroken mother.  This one is a section of a spectacular crucifixion window.

 

Here's what I remember about this day in my own life:  after the service, and the food, and all the people, the thought:

 

OK, we did that, and it was truly awful, but it's over.  He'll come back now, right? 


 

Funeral Home Calling Hours

In a little while a friend is picking me up so that we can go to the calling hours for our other friend's son.  Here is what I remember from 5.5 years ago:

 

My surviving son said that the place looked like, ummmm, I believe that what he said was  "a Vegas brothel."  I trust that that remark emerged out of imagination rather than experience.  I believe that it had to do with the overdone décor, particularly the drapes and upholstery.

 

The event seemed very stilted at first.  People began to sit quietly in the chairs ringing the rooms.  I went over to a group of Josh's college friends and urged them to move about freely and talk among themselves.  "One would think that you were in a funeral home.  Oh.  I guess you are."  Yes, I actually said that.

 

One consequence of the above was that, as the afternoon and evening wore on, the crowd became a large crush of people.  We abandoned all sense of a receiving line and wandered about greeting our guests.

 

I was surprised by who showed up.  A lot of it I could not remember afterward, and I had to look at the guestbooks to see who had been there.  But there are moments that remain clear to me.  A lawyer colleague whom I had not seen in a decade, but who had lost a college-age daughter years earlier.  Parents and children from the Jewish school in which I had taught ~ a brave move on their part on many levels.  My cousin who flew in from Chicago and had only an hour to spare before his flight back.  Two nuns who had made the four hour drive from southern Ohio and had to make their return trip that night.  That's why I'm going today, because I remember those moments.

 

And something I learned.  I had been most opposed to the urn being "displayed" at the funeral home and at the service the next day.  The funeral home director kept talking about "closure," which I consider a BS kind of word.  But there it was.  And at one point I glanced in that direction, and saw Josh's ex-girlfriend, fiancee' really, standing alone in front of the table.  She quietly blew a kiss in the direction of the urn and mouthed the word, "Good-bye."  So.  I thought.  Maybe it is of some use. 

 

 

 

Ministry Musings: Transitions and Death, Part I: The Conundrum

As I left Small Church in the Country two weeks ago, one of the patriarchs of the church lay dying in hospice.  I've spent a lot of time with him and his wife over the past two years, and she was frantic at the thought of my not being there for the funeral. Our denomination, like most, has clear rules about pastors concluding their relationships with former congregations when we leave.  I had explained those rules, and my plans to follow them, before I left.  We did leave the matter of the funeral hanging, with me telling my parishioner that I was sure the new pastor would be a great help to her and that, if her husband lived for another couple of weeks, she would probably be more comfortable with my successor, who would no doubt be spending a great deal of time with her ~ but also indicating my willingness to participate in the funeral in some way, if that was acceptable to the new pastor.

The husband did die a couple of days ago, and eventually I received an email from the interim pastor, saying that the new widow would appreciate my sharing my memories at the funeral.  As it happened, I thought that I had a conflict, so the matter was out of my hands.  I also read between the lines ~ and in the lines themselves ~ and understood that the invitation was from the widow, and not from the pastor herself.

The situation generated a great deal of discussion, both among pastors and in my own family.  The pastors, on the whole, emphasize the importance of boundaries set to respect both new and former pastors, while often recognizing the need for flexibility, especially where only a short time has passed between the pastor's departure and the death of a congregant. My children found the "rules" baffling and, in my daughter's words, "cruel." Trained in social work, she is well aware of boundary issues, but told me in no uncertain terms that in this situation pastors are more concerned about ourselves and our colleagues than we are about our parishoners.

As for me, I see the need for clear boundaries, and recognize that my own gut response emphasizes their purpose.  As someone actively grieving, and apparently facing a lifetime of same, I know that my own immediate responses for myself, to seek out people who know me well, are mirrored in my desire to care for others in the same boat.  And having been so often disappointed by loved ones ~ which I now understand to be nearly a universal experience shared by the bereaved, one which shocks us all at first and then gradually becomes one more part of the process we have to accept ~ I am very deeply and personally horrified to have become one of those who disappoint. 

 

But I have come to terms with it, in an ambiguous kind of way ~ next post.

Unknown Soldier

This afternoon I presided over the funeral service of a woman whose name I had never heard until after she died, when a funeral director unknown to me gave me a call. 

She was in her late eighties, and she and her husband, who died last winter without any subsequent notice to their church (that would be my church), had apparently become estranged from everyone on their lives.  No children, but a few surviving siblings, their families, and an assisted living facility filled with people, with none of whom they maintained relationships.

In addition to my own congregants, I have visited with several people who live, or lived, in various forms of institutional care here, and who have at most a tangential relationship to our church.  They come to my attention one way or another, and I go to see them.  Sometimes I simply sit with them for awhile, sometimes several times over the course of weeks or months, because I believe that the dying should have companions, even ~ or perhaps especially ~ if they have no way of knowing who, or whether anyone, is present to them.

But this elderly couple did not come to my attention, which means that neither of them was ever even mentioned in a passing conversation.

How does this happen?

How can someone live into her eighties, become widowed, and slowly slip away, without anyone at all remarking upon her existence?

 

As it turned out, about twenty people did show up for her service, including two nurses who have cared for her for the past two years.  None of them were able to shed much light on her life.  In talking to everyone before the service, I learned that she had effectively severed all family ties, and that no one knows why.

 

The others who materialized were from a military veterans' group and from the United States Navy.  The lady in question had served in the WAVES during World War II.

 

Thank God for the gift of imagination.  My homily emerged from Psalm 139 ~ the God who accompanies us everywhere, the God to whom even the darkness ~ in this case, the darkness of the human heart and mind ~ is as light ~ and from my imaginings about her life.  She had once been an adventuresome girl who joined the Navy, she had had colleagues at a number of jobs,  and she has a large extended family.

 

The general consensus of those who spoke to me afterward was, in the words of one relative through another, "That gal did a great job, especially with nothing to work with."

 

But I did have a lot to work with.  Things happen. God loves, anyway.  God heals and restores.  It's a mystery.

 

That's the story.