Mementos.
A constant among the variables
It was brisk, but oh was it sunny. The sunlight penetrated through the stained glass windows, a collage of color like a spatter painting upon the floor. Something about the sun didn’t feel quite right, an opus of delight upon those gathered in grief. The body lay like porcelain within the casket hoisted on metallic wheels, everything draped in mementos of hand-stitched quilts, old bronze belt buckles, and a heavily faded and tattered baseball cap, no longer belonging to an owner.
I sat nearest a couple of cherished colleagues who also felt the inkling to attend this sorrow-filled spectacle—a ceremony of bereavement in the cathedral upon the hill. We smiled and tried to chuckle at memories of the deceased, times shared with him when things were different, and so were we. It all felt so long ago now, though was really only a couple of weeks past.
Time is a cruel maiden, unnoticed until the bell tolls, its reverberations swallowed in finality. And toll it did—from the tower beyond the heavy oak doors, the sound weathered and rusted but resolute.
We congregated under a cascade of hymnal music played from a nearby pipe organ that dominated the space, the unsung lyrics caressing like a hug while my guts turned inside out in anxious anticipation. Truth be told, I’m not quite sure what I was so nervous for, perhaps just the presence of the grim and its icy touch was enough to be chilled to the bone, the loitering decay an aide-memoire of our own finitude and fragility.
I hadn’t just attended a service in quite a many years, my vocational pursuits often placing me behind the pulpit instead. Such was the dissettlement I felt so deeply—for it was far easier to officiate than to mourn.
And while death is what united us, hope was what granted peace. Still, I was mad at the sky, mad at the heavens for granting such splendor on a day when all I wished to do was to grieve and to weep, falling into the arms of despair like an old, unwelcome friend. How it felt so that time would cease, nor would I have cared much to remain there forever, the companionship nearest me my only warmth. It did not feel right that the seconds ticked on by like drips into a well filled with conjoined lament.
But the ritual mass continued, the ceremony adequately put into motion by the man in the cloak from the pulpit, accompanied by two younger men adorned well for the occasion. I did not kneel, but I did gaze above, feeling a graceful beam warm my face in my contemplation.
Elvis’s voice rose at the graveside, a tender offering to the biting midwinter air. Through chattering teeth and shallow breaths, we stood frozen, the melody wrapping around us like a fragile warmth. Overhead, a sundog blazed in quiet defiance, stretched across the sky like a banner of light, while the canopy tent fluttered and strained against the restless wind.
And at the juxtaposition of the passage of time yet stilled by death, it was as though I felt the spirit of the Lord descend like a dove upon us all. Into the chill, into the hurt. A melody sung tried and true, of hope and a constant we can cling to.
A spirit that whispered into the void.
A whisper that said,
In a world of variables, there necessitates a constant. May God be the constant we depend upon.
"A melody sung tried and true, of hope and a constant we can cling to."
Poetry worthy right there.
Beautiful.