Atlanta, GA
October 1, 2023
This is a beautiful time of year. The air is crisp, the temperature cool.
Leaves adopt glorious hues, and prepare to glide to their annual grave.
But some deaths are unexpected, and come too soon. Yesterday we attended the funeral of a beautiful young woman we’d never met.
At 21, she was a year younger than our elder son and a couple years older than our younger one. My wife recently became friends with her mother, but neither of us had met the girl being mourned.
Testifying to the universal affection for her and her family, cars overflowed around the church, and a large congregation filled every pew.
For a couple decades, Holy Spirit Catholic Church has been our parish. It’s where our sons received Confirmation and First Communion. But this was a service no parent wants to see.
Those of the deceased sat before the pulpit, solemn and dignified in their unimaginable grief. A pretty portrait adorned the altar, of a gorgeous girl retrieved before her time.
Beneath the radiant smile of their departed daughter, mother and father comforted two surviving sons, while grandparents clung to whatever composure they could.
Behind them, throughout the church, arms draped adjacent shoulders as the nave abounded in tissues and tears. Hymns soared, heads hung, and prayers rose, beseeching celestial guidance and heavenly help.
Readings from the books of Wisdom, Apocalypse, and the Gospel of John implored us to keep our hearts untroubled, because Christ prepared a place for souls that’ll no longer be tormented. In God’s hands, those He reclaims are ever at peace.
During his homily, the priest reminded us St Augustine lost a son. Angry at God, Augustine searched for answers. Unable to find them, he sought perspective that supplied serenity.
“Rather than continue asking why you took my son,” Augustine exclaimed, “I instead thank you for giving him to me at all.”
Grateful as I am God that gave me two sons, were one of their pictures in that frame on the altar, I’d be unable to ever stop asking why he was taken.
Even if I received an answer, I’m sure I wouldn’t accept it. But I’d have no choice. Nor, unfortunately, does the grieving family who filled the front pew.
It’s said that God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. We can’t comprehend his ways or know his plan.
God strikes the match of life, and decides when to extinguish its earthly flame. But sometimes, when He does, as the wisps rise to their final release, a radiant light remains with us.
Those rays were in the church yesterday, emitted from the face within the frame. We never had the pleasure of knowing this lovely girl, but after her funeral I feel like we did, and wish we had.
It was obvious that everyone, even those of us she’d never met, was a better person because she’d lived. In death she reminded us this is true of most people, including those we casually neglect or never know. If nothing else, most of what we need to survive is only possible because of people whose paths we’ll never cross.
Kurt Richebacher once wondered what good it would do “to write about all the things that are going right with the world? We should simply enjoy those things.” And we should. Particularly since we don’t know how long we’ll be able to do so.
But we should occasionally talk about them too, because at some point we’ll have them only in memories, if we don’t first become one ourselves.
It’s easy to take for granted the blessings we’re bestowed. But when they’re gone, and especially if they disappear suddenly, we wish we’d taken better advantage of the gifts we were given.
As the church emptied and the crowd dispersed, we walked alone back toward our car. The day had warmed since we went inside, but the sky remained an uncluttered blue.
Like supple fingers thru soft hair, a light wind rustled the trees. As we rounded the block, an autumn leaf broke free of its bough, paving the way for millions to follow.
Back and forth it drifted toward the ground. Before it made contact it was caught on a breeze. In the gust it began to ascend.
Within a few seconds it was carried away.
JD
Beautifully written, and highly touching. It matters not how we died, but only how we lived...and I pray for the family whose loss is always unbearable, until our lord and time eases us from the suffering. Thank you JD for helping me appreciate now and today, and thanking God for all he has blessed me with, knowing it can be gone tomorrow...