Significance

Those of us who have lost someone close to us know the value of a memorial service as part of our healing. We see our loved one honored. We are surrounded by people who share our feelings of bereavement. We feel their love for us. Together we can weep, laugh and begin to heal.

However, this week I discovered the value of memorial even for those at the edges of that mourning community. Don and I attended a memorial of a lady we had never met. We attended the service because she is the mother of a friend. We wanted to be supportive of her family although we could not participate directly in the feelings of grief and loss. We had no stories to tell about this woman.

We joined others in singing "Just a Closer Walk" and "Blest Be the Tie that Binds." We prayed the Lord's Prayer. We listened as Scripture was read. We heard the powerful organ prelude and a medley of favorite hymns sung and played on the piano…Just as I am, In the Garden, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, Softly and Tenderly. Pictures of the mom flashed on the screens above us . . . babe, child, young woman, mother, grandmother.

The pastor gave a meditation celebrating the life of this woman. The son and daughter both spoke and gave readings reflecting their experience of their mom. Then people in the congregation spontaneously gave little vignettes from their experience with this beautiful lady who loved flowers and hospitality. A young woman who loved her as though she were truly her grandmother honored her by sharing memories of their time together as she helped her with garden chores. Those who worked with her on church committees filled in more of a picture of this vibrant, faithful woman. Neighbors spoke of her friendship and hospitality not only to adults but also to the neighborhood kids.

Soon, like colorful pieces in a patchwork quilt, the individual images formed a beautiful whole. A life. We were celebrating the life of a woman loved by God and those who knew her. We were not merely acknowledging the death of a woman who in later years developed Alzheimer’s. Participating as a listener, I began to feel connected to the mourners. And it came to me like a warming breeze on a cool spring day: mourning and celebrating go together and need to be done in community. They bring us together and they remind us of the importance of each single life. Seventeenth century poet John Donne used a geographic metaphor to express significance through connectedness. He wrote: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent . . . “(Meditation XVII).

As we hear the stories of our loved ones, we are reminded of the journey and our final destination—home with our Lord. Speaking of heaven, John Donne wrote: “When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.” (Meditation XVII)

Each person has eternal significance and when someone is “translated,” we are enriched by hearing the story.