I went to the memorial service for my friend and coworker Jean on Thursday evening. It gave me some time to contemplate her life and death.
I sat in the chapel room with her cremains. Twenty years ago nobody I knew was cremated when they died. That’s changed radically and now most funerals I attend the body is disposed of in that manner. That’s my plan when the time comes. My wife and I will eventually be deposited at Fort Snelling, no doubt a few dozen rows from where my father and mother will eventually rest together.
But Thursday I stood and looked at the pictures on a board that represented the life of a person whom I’d known for just a few years. Jean was a sweet person. As I noted earlier in the week she was the kind of person who saved you a piece of cake if you couldn’t make it to the party. And the pictures reflected that person. Pictures of her at family gatherings, at the side of her children, with assorted classmates, and with Santa. I identified with that picture in kind of a strange way: sixty years from now people will be laid to rest and their picture with Santa will be one with me. A strange man whose knee they occupied for a few minutes in their childhood. I’ll be long gone in body, but that photo of me will still be cropping up six decades or more from now. That’s kind of cool.
One of the pictures on Jean’s board was of her dog. If you love your pet you will get it, and if you don’t have pets you might not. But I know that dog meant a lot to Jean and she found it very difficult to lose her friend. Pets take a piece of our hearts with them every day of our lives and give us love out of all proportion in return. And when they leave, the gaping hole in our existence is exquisitely painful. I like to think that on that Friday morning that Jean left this world there was great joy and barking in Heaven because they were reunited at last.
Jean was a good looking woman, and some of the pictures of her in her youth showed a different person than the one I worked with in the recent past. A younger person who had not yet been tamed by life. Full of energy and excitement. And in some of the pictures a weariness and sadness that shows through even when a smile is on the face. The look that says, “Man, I’m bushed. Can we just move on?”
I understand that look as well. We all get it from time to time. It’s not a facial report of failure, or anger, or disappointment. It’s just the honest evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses. A self-assessment that leaves us in doubt of how well we’re coping with the challenges in our lives. Jean coped. She carried on. She worked very hard to make things go for other people. Including me. And I thank her for her kindness.
Maybe that’s where a sense of love from God comes into the picture. Christ admonished us to love each other as we love ourselves. Show that love to someone you work with today. They might be the man or woman in that picture with the struggle showing in their eyes. Your kind word or deed may be just what they need to get over the hump of that day and continue on to their destiny. You might be the spark that ignites their flame and helps them to come closer to God because you reflected his love in your actions.
I don’t always live up to that standard. I’d be lying if I said I even try every day. But Thursday, sitting quietly in that room with Jean for the last time I resolved to try a bit harder going forward. The soft glow of lights in Jean’s cube should help me remember that when the time comes.
