A Eulogy With Resolve

Last week, my friend Mary died.

She was the first someone who died after my dad, who I knew, who I cared about, who I had laughed and cried and eaten and partied with at length. We were both on the Elder board at Church and I sat by her when I wanted to exchange looks and notes with someone who I knew would be as bored as I was when going over the endless financial statements.

My reactions evolved over the week before the funeral. When I heard she passed, I was talking covertly in a dressing room and between the hip music and the conversations about florescent-induced skin tone, it was hard to understand, to fully comprehend. Then, there was dinner with the kids on Wednesday nights, where I talked to them like I normally would, about school and the Superbowl and then, listened quietly as Russell got to the real stuff -- how it happened, what happened. The tragedy of it all made me sad that night, but sad deep inside and not out my eyeballs. On Friday, I was driving somewhere and the Grateful Dead song "Box of Rain" came on and between the beauty of the words, the melody, and the snow-capped foothills to my right, I was suddenly tearing up, remembering someone who probably loved this song and loved the foothills, too. The tears were there, but as I remembered her dancing in her kitchen around Thanksgiving turkeys, they disappeared and were replaced by smiling and my loud singing.

Another song I played a lot this week was Iron and Wine's "Naked As We Came," a song I have always loved and loved to play, and I thought about making a CD for the kids with both this and the Grateful Dead song, songs that to me, make death-sense. They helped put some words to something so senseless. But on a second listen, I hesitated -- they were so perfect that it was sad and hurtful and hard to hear these songs without thinking of Mary's untimely death. I didn't want to make things worse, so I quietly tucked away these songs for myself, and proceeded to the funeral.

At the funeral, the three kids - whom I only call kids as an endearing term and has no bearing on their maturity and general coolness - performed a trio rendition of "Naked As We Came." And my sad insides were suddenly all over my outsides, running down my cheeks and out my nose. I sobbed and went through tissues, until I had mounds of them in my purse, like small, white bats hiding in the corners. That pew in the front, where she slid in late every Sunday, would never be filled in the same way. As the final chords were struck, I looked up and saw both the misery and the resolve in each of the kids' face. It was in this moment that I was aware, not only by the power of words that so perfectly fit who I was missing, but by the power of us, to move forward, even despite what seems like impossibility.