10. DEATH

I’m really looking forward to the day death dies. 

I've taught myself to think of things from distant perspectives. This is not difficult for a Believer. 

At some point, in the church lessons of my youth, someone gave us a handout or a bookmark that said:

“Will this matter in a thousand years?” 

It really struck me at the time, and it has obviously stuck with me. Even now, at this very moment, I am sitting at my laptop doing my word of the day/Lent writing while floating in a sea of playful destruction; toys and books scattered all around the family room, a bowl of peanut butter with half gnawed celery stalks sticking out of it, a matchbox tractor peeking out of a toddler size sock and a broken Jack-in-the-box clown staring at me.

I seriously said to my achy head, spent from a day full of grandkids (their mom was working a 12 hour shift at Farmington Urgent Care Clinic) “Will these toys and such, being strewn about, matter in a thousand years?" And then I chuckled without chuckling, because I’m too tired to laugh…”Heck, it won’t matter tomorrow, even.” And so I sit in a colorful pool of grandparenthood. 

I get to thinking about a thousand years from now and I wonder if, by then, we will finally have been through the much anticipated, mysteriously unpredictable but threateningly close Second Coming. 

Then I get to thinking about the fact that I have sung at an average of three funerals a month in the last while. It’s been sort of insane. I’m a real believer in being present at these pivotal times in life. Funerals pretty much trump all other activities for me. I finally had to change the payment method for my daytime guitar students because I had to cancel so many times for funerals. I am blessed to be able to use my voice to comfort, and not have my own emotions overtake me. I acknowledge this as a gift and I do not take it lightly. I don’t mind the time, and travel, and rescheduling that funerals require, but the picking away at the heart that repeated loss brings is disconcerting. And exhausting. And frankly, is hurts.

So I, for one, will be celebrating in a major way, however spirits get to celebrate, when we as a massive family of God finally get to be done with death. Can you even imagine?

Years ago, when it was possible for people to buy up to four city cemetery plots per household, our family purchased 20 plots in the Farmington City Cemetery. I was really surprised how comforting it felt to know where we were going to end up, unless we were lost at sea or caught in some other catastrophic demise. Libby and I even tried-out our spots once, laying our bodies on the warm summer grass. Our friend Cindy Gardner was with us, and she tried out hers up above us. Our neighbors the Baileys have plots next to the Gardners. The Hefners are just west of us, and the Barlows and Palmers up east of us. Each of those families, come to think of it, has already planted one of their treasures in one of their plots. Ah, me.

Death, from the underbelly, is such a mysterious unknown. Really, so much guesswork for us that remain. Faith is comforting. But faith, by definition, is not knowledge. We have somehow trained ourselves as humans to trust knowledge more than we do faith, which from the perspective of a thousand years from now, will seem pretty juvenile I think. But even that is a guess.

All I’m saying, because my head hurts and I don’t want to think that deep tonight, is that one day we will all be dead. And when we are all dead, and God says, “OK Folks, time for the next phase.” Then we will get to have bodies that do not get strep A or lung cancer or congestive heart failure and there won’t be car accidents or planes flying into buildings and there won’t be death.

On the other hand, I also have this strange thought that repeatedly visits me, where we are all sitting around in heaven and someone starts a conversation like this: 

“Well, and how did you die?” 

Then we will all get to tell our stories, exciting or boring as they may be, and the rest of us will shake our heads, or put our arms around each other, or gasp with shock and awe or even laugh at what adventures we had in our bodies, with their varied entrances and exits.  

On days when the evening news sputters the tragic information of massive killings or tsunami-like tragedies, I imagine the wafting of spirits floating upward. I picture the gates being flung open and hosts of loved ones running out to meet the crowd - the jubilation on the other side creating a perfect counterbalance for the sorrow that is here.

4. PERCH

(today's word is PERCH)

Each morning, after I have brushed my teeth and cleansed my skin, I stand at the large window in our bathroom and look out over the woods in the hollow behind our house. Our place sits on a rise, and the view stretches from that private woody spot over the rooftops of houses in our neighborhood, westward past the landscape of earth, and skims the glassy surface of the Great Salt Lake.  On good clear days the Oquirrh Mountains rise up beyond the water and appear to go on and on until the earth curves on the horizon. In an attempt at mindfulness, I pause from the natural tendency to move forward with daily demands.  I make myself breathe deeply, a full bellied inhale, where my chest rises almost painfully toward my chin, followed by a long, slow and purposeful exhale.  The exhale matters as much as the inhale, my body allowing used air to exit completely, making room for fresh air.  I have trained myself to practice this routine daily.  As I breathe I tell myself to let go of yesterday, and to delay the anticipations of today.  I allow my mind to view the trees, the watercolor sky, the water and the distant mountains, imagining myself floating out over all, imagining myself a bird perched on some distant branch of a far off tree, way out there where few human feet have trod. Five breaths.  It only takes five breaths, a small and do-able habit that I have been able to repeat daily.  It’s been rather life changing, this one little habit of mine. Morning mindfulness.

In the early hours of February 26 I stood at my window and inhaled, but the exhale fell in fits against the windowpane.  I pushed the old spent air out, and it splurted in sobs against the cold morning.  The woody bark of the scrub oak trees, finally freed from winter snow, spread lattice-like and barren, unaware of the sorrow on the other side of the glass. Usually, on winter mornings, I will watch as starlings flit in tiny flocks from tree to tree, dancing against the cerulean sky.  But there were no flocks this morning.  Fitting, I thought. I caught myself and requested that I let go of yesterday, but my throbbing heart kept pounding against my lungs.  We would bury our sister, Cindy Gardner, this day.  I told myself that this moment was sacred, that I should cherish it, this time when the air she had breathed was still available to us, where we could inhale and still smell her perfume, and hear the echoes of her voice.  Her presence vibrated in the unseasonal sunlight on that winter morning.  I searched for her, half expecting to see her, somewhere between the woods and the lake. Mourning mindfulness.

At my last breath I watched as one solitary bird flew from the west, straight toward me.  It landed purposefully on the branch of the scrub oak tree closest to my window.  She hopped on the perch and turned to face me, a large red-breasted robin.  Her head bowed, then rose, her steely eyes looking straight into mine, her plump rusty breast puffed out before her.  I stopped my breath, stunned at her presence, surprised that this spring creature would reveal herself so early in the year. “Oh Hello” I whispered, my tears rolling down my cheek and along my neck. The words strangely comforted me, trailing off in a long and calm release. I determined to stand there until she left.  I looked at her the way I look at Dave when I want to send him a message in silence.  I did not hear a voice, nor see anything but an early spring robin, but somehow I felt Cindy’s presence, whether real or remembered. I felt her silently looking at me, calm and whole and at peace with her place.  I saw her free of her cancer ridden body, sensed her satisfaction as she perched there , bobbing in the breeze on the branch of an ancient scrub oak. I heard but did not hear her singing,…all is well…. all is well. 

Inhale.  Exhale.  Time rolled into a ball and hovered like a star, still and twinkling.  I knew, in a flash of a moment, her peace.  And then, just as quickly as she came, she turned her head and flew toward the sun, circling back around as if to say, “I’m ok.  Now get to work!”

I released my last breath, then drew another as I turned. There was work to do.  I had arms that needed to lift and embrace, and songs to sing, and kisses to plant.  I had shoes to tie, and hair to brush, and meals to make and share and she would not have me wallow in my own sadness for too long.  

Cindy continues to come and go, dancing in and out of my consciousness like those flocks of starlings.  But really, she is more an unseasonable presence, a robin in the winter, who comes to perch outside my window when I am still enough to see her. She is peace and calm and comfort, and she is laughter and encouragement.  She understands our tears. But she will not have us weep too long.  That just won’t do.  She will weep with us, and gently nod from her perch, and then she will turn her head to the Son and lift her wings, calling back to us, “Now get to work.”