A name was read, the bell tolled. Another name was read, another tolling of the bell.
I started thinking of those people and the meaning of their lives, their influence, the loss felt by others. I thought as well of the names who could be there next year and I found myself misty-eyed.
Another name, another tolling of the bell.
Each name read was piercing, the bell started sounding like a gong. As the ritual went on, it became painful to hear, and the anticipation of the sound was jarring. These people meant something in the world. They mattered to someone. They left others void of their presence.
Another name, another tolling of the bell.
Rich Mullins wrote: It is the living that mourn at a funeral-not the dead. We mourn because the lives of the dead have made ours more lively, and since we are (or have been) so knit together, the loss or another's strand will eventually cause our own unraveling. Fellowship is the mingling of threads that make up a fabric, and only in a fabric do we have some kind of meaningfulness.
Another name, another tolling of the bell. Is there a way to stop it?
2 comments:
Beautiful and sad, I think the only way to fight it is to keep weaving and when we do loose someone we should openly accept it. One of the strangest experiences that I’ve had with death is when Anna died, someone who was so strongly woven into my childhood that I called her my grandma. A little while before she passed on she and I began to write emails to each other and I got the chance to learn a little about her from an adult perspective since we hadn’t talked in 6 or 7 years. The relationship change in ways but the core of it which was founded with Love was still there. She was my friend and was someone who I could talk with even though she was someone who I only knew as a child. When she died it was very sad, but at the same time looking back at the 20 some years that she had been in and out of my life I found that I was fulfilled and that I imagine that she was too. I found myself very lucky that I was able to get to know her again.
How interesting to read this blog - I was talking to someone about death recently. We shared some cultural experiences we had with death - in different contexts than the American experience.
So much of our reaction to death I think lies in our cultural perception. Yes, there is a deep sense that it shouldn't happen and that these people are terribly missed...but on the other hand I don't think we have enough 'ceremonies' that bring death to a level that is just as accepted as any other process of life.
I love the concept of the Day of the Dead and All Souls day because it is a way to acknowledge death and those who have passed on in a context other than the grief of a funeral.
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