27 juli 2023 Under The Old Shade Trees

    Sven went to a Celebration of Life ceremony at a rural township church, arriving just as the pastor began his narrative. He had known the man who had walked-on after 105-years, as being the father of his oldest friend’s wife. He had known her mother too for many years, and in whose funeral Sven’s wife sang a song requested by the family. He knew many of the couple’s grandchildren, and great grand-children, two of whom traveled a very long distance to be in attendance that day. 

    Taking a seat beside a friend in the overflow area in the back of the church, he listened and looked at the large group of people sitting in the main body of the church ahead of him, recognizing some of them as family members and some as mutual friends. He remembered being in the church many times before over the years during different periods of his life.

    On the west wall opposite where Sven sat, the stained glass windows brightened the outlines of peoples heads and faces of those who sat nearest them; a small child fussed a bit, its mother rising with the babe in her arms to assess its needs and not further disturb proceedings, but no one would’ve minded, and had he been alive certainly not the centenarian; he would’ve smiled and bid them, stay. Some family members told stories or related their special relationship to the man; one created laughter, another prompted tears. Unique to other funerals Sven had attended, they sang the “Battle Hymn of The Republic,” and “America, The Beautiful,” two songs for which Sven, and many of the other older individuals, didn’t need their song books.

    After the service all were welcome to stay for the reception, but Sven’s first inclination was to leave, something he had done for many years of his life, preferring to retain the memory of the peoples lives ‘well-lived’ to himself, at least for a while, and let the congregation depart to the reception as they wish around him.

    Adjoining the church is an old well-kept cemetery dating back to 1898. Sven walked under the old shade trees among its many headstones. Several names were familiar. Some of people he knew from long ago and in whose funerals he participated. This man’s grave and that of his wife, next to him, had been refreshed with a layer of black dirt, and drew Sven’s attention. He pondered there a few minutes, thinking of the two of them alive and well those years long ago. Wandering away he read a gravestone of a young man he held as an infant, born the same year as his daughter, and who died much too young; his photograph was on the stone ...

    Returning to the church, he found the lunch line seemingly as long as when it began, although every seat at every table was taken, and people came and went. Some found him, of all people, and embraced him heartily, much to his surprise. His reaction being, “Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else?” Sure he knew some; all had their links to his memories, whereas others needed refreshing. 

    Two women there stood together a distance away. One looked at him smiling as the other visited. He looked behind himself thinking she was smiling at someone else; there was no one there.

    Walking to him smiling, she held out her hand and asked him if he was who she thought he was, then thanked him for a story he had written about her father and her uncle many years ago, both of whom he had momentarily forgotten and needed to be reminded; the memory of them -- alive and well -- gradually returning again, under the same church roof.