Two Funerals in January

Photo by Jorge Fernandez Salas on Unsplash

I’ve attended beautiful funerals in the last month honoring the lives of two special women who were not only good and faithful servants, but moms to everyone who came into their orbit. They were salt of the earth, do-anything-for-you kinds of people. The first was my godmother, the mother of one of my closest childhood friends and a long-time school nurse, and the other, someone I came to know in the last 30 years. In both cases, their lives were celebrated  in churches packed full of family members and friends, grateful for the kindness, generosity, and love of these wonderful human beings.

My husband and I sang for the second funeral, held in the church where we were married. Sadly, like many small town churches, it is struggling, but for that hour of celebration it was once again alive and vibrant. A friend of ours played glorious music on the same organ my mother-in-law played for decades. We sang the Malotte Lord’s Prayer, which, although it is not one of my favorite pieces, moved me to tears. Seeing folks filling the pews of that little church and remembering the days when my husband and I sang in the choir while his mother directed, took me back to a simpler time we will never again experience with people we so deeply loved. And then an hour later, as we gathered at the luncheon, messages came across our phones that another person had been killed by federal agents in Minnesota.

A part of me envies those who simply choose to ignore what is happening and move on with their lives. Those of us of with white skin, who are fortunate enough to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle free from worry about food, shelter, or health care will probably remain unscathed from the utter devastation that has been wrought upon our country, so I suppose looking away is a viable option. But the contrast between the lives of those two women who exemplified what it means to love your neighbor, who lived their faith by caring for others, by feeding whoever showed up at their tables, and who were always ready to provide a listening ear and a hug, and the cruelty, greed, lies, and criminality that we’re now bombarded with every single day is more than I can process.

I wish I had something profound to say about how to navigate this journey. I worry about the generations coming after us. I worry about the people who don’t look like me and who speak with an accent. I worry about what will happen to our environment. I am filled with anxiety and slow-burning anger every time I get an alert on my phone or turn on the news.  

But I can look to those moms now resting in the arms of Jesus for inspiration. At times, their lives were far from easy, and I’m sure they felt frustrated and perhaps, as angry as I am about situations they could not change or control. But they never stopped taking care of people whether that meant soothing a sick child in the school nurse’s office or showing up with coolers full of food when I was home recovering from back surgery. All we can do is fight back with kindness and carry the legacy of those two loving and faithful servants into a world that so desperately needs it.