Death and Joy.

Death has been wandering around the periphery lately. My dear colleague and friend lost his 60-something mother suddenly a few weeks ago, and tonight we got an email from a long lost and much missed friend telling us his father had died unexpectedly just yesterday.

I went to a funeral for a family friend two days ago. She and her husband had been great friends and neighbors to my mom and dad, and after my mom died, they were there for my dad. With her passing, her husband and my dad are just two old men rattling around on the top of a hill. (There are no other neighbors in walking distance...) I introduced myself to her children who immediately knew who I was and expressed sympathy for the loss of my mother, dead nearly 6 years. I approached her husband to offer my condolences and support and he in turn asked after my husband's health. Remarkable people. I was trying to console and be present and that entire family offered me love and support back.

The thing about funerals... well, Catholic funerals, is that they are quiet, contained and follow a very rote formula. (Is that redundant?) Mass is offered, readings are read, and family members who think they can talk, stand at the podium and struggle through tears to read the tributes they've written.

I was good appreciating my sister's high clear singing voice as she joined in prayer. During the mass and homily, I was thinking how bad the sound system was, not helped by the priest who had a very heavy accent. I was wondering what it would take to bring some theatrical technique to the church. Then, the son came to the lectern. He'd written a beautiful remembrance of his mom, and as he read it, his voice catched. He stopped. He collected himself, he cried and he went on. I lost it.

I cried. I cried for him and for his loss. I cried for my dad's neighbor, now alone in that house, I cried for my mother-in-law, dead at 64, and for... mom. The son took me back. Funerals take us back. And there we are, sitting in that grief and sorrow once again. That acute loss. That pain that doesn't end, that pain that just becomes a part of you.

And, I think of my friends who've just lost parents. I think of my dear friend who's father-in-law is so sick and so far away.

I think, death, well, there it is. It is hard. It hurts to the heart. The loss is physically painful. Although we never lose that pain, never, the pain becomes part of us and in a way becomes something we cherish and revisit and learn to live with. We learn to go on.

We could say that death haunts our house. Well, life haunts it too. With the glorious spring mornings and the dandelions everywhere (my grandmother told us to remember her with the dandelions) we can face the new day together with remembrances and with joy.