Category: Musings

On the day before the New Year, I sang at a funeral. As sunlight streamed through stained glass, the small choir sang sweetly, and the priest spoke of faith even when comfort seems beyond us, good words but sometimes as hard to hold onto as the sunlight in our hands.

I had just returned to my office, and as I opened my car door, I saw a lady walking down the street stop in the road as her thin, plastic shopping bag tore and her purchases fell to the wet street. I grabbed an empty bag from my car and went to her, joining a younger woman who had arrived a moment before. We gathered up her belongings from the wintery muck and wrangled them into the whole bag. The lady stood weeping, the tears freezing on her cheeks; the torn bag seemed to be a symbol of her day.

“I am never like this. I have walked for ten years; I never take a ride,” she said, looking at the young woman beside her, who must have made the office just as I arrived, and then at car and the young man at the wheel, waiting at the corner of the street. “But my sister killed herself last night,” she continued, “and I shouldn’t even be out like this at all. Nobody should even see me.” The freezing wind, the bitter cold, the torn bag – these were merely the external reflections of her life at that moment.

I handed a tissue from the pack in my coat pocket and placed the rest of the package in hers as she wiped her eyes, apologizing and thanking us. “There,” we said, each of us holding her in half hugs, two strangers on the snowy street on the final day of the year. “I never take a ride,” she said, independently but with weariness in her voice. “Sometimes you need one,” I said, as the young woman nodded, her eyes calm and kind, and said, “It will be ok.” The lady was silent for a moment, and then let herself be lead to the car by the young woman who held her arm closely.

The young man came and took the bag to the car where he waited to open the door for the young woman and her grieving companion. I could do no more, and so I met the young woman’s eyes a final time and we nodded to each other and smiled sympathetically.

I watched their slow progress across the slush and then they stopped and the young woman held the lady in a long, patient hug when she could not, for sorrow, walk more.  I knew she was in the good hands of anonymous people who would care for a stranger in need and see her safely home.

In this world where we are beset by stories of sadness and sorrow, we are seldom reminded that in the midst of all things there are more kindnesses we will never be witness to than we could possibly know – perhaps more than our hearts could hold if we did.

Yes, in the throes of deepest despair, when the sense of loneliness is colder even than the winter winds, Mankind offers itself in these deeds of brotherhood and service in ways which are small, tender, and gentle – and are deeply rooted in strength. Each act is like a blade of wild grass growing – alone they seem insignificant – but trust, ever and always, that those acts together create fields so vast our eyes cannot see their horizon.

And so it is that on that bitterly cold and windy day that I could see all around me fields and fields of green and gold wherever I looked at the cusp of the old year and the new.

May we each hold that faith when comfort seems beyond us that there are even strangers who would give it willingly. May we each see and recognize, in this new year and all others, the green and golden fields and fields that surround us in sunlight and in snow. Happy New Year.

Thank you all for your love today. I can’t post this publicly quite yet, but this is – my day today.

A teenage boy at the school where I work, a junior, was killed in an auto accident today. I have been in crisis mode with our admin team since this morning, working on wordsmithing and crafting announcements with our school head to send to our families.

We just concluded the assembly where the news of the death, delivered to faculty one-on-one by admin team runners moments before the subsequent gathering, was given to the students.

I stood and watched the bravado and posturing of teens as they gathered, not knowing what was to come. The few astute students with furrowed brows worried, knowing that assemblies are not just called out of the blue here. There was a very, very perfect silence from the students as they sat on the floor and the mezzanine, waiting.

The absolute attention given to the Head of School – for 450-odd teenagers, even our excellent ones who are usually attentive for teens, was like being on a knife’s point.

An announcement was read, firm and sad, but understanding, from the Head of School, and there was that moment of even deeper silence before sudden tears and sounds of shock escaped before their hands clasped over their gaping mouths, fluttering up like heavy butterflies.

They shuffled from the space as though chained together, clustering, whispering, quiet, save for the few immobilized by shock and grief, who sat, stricken, on the gleaming wood floor. Triads and dyads lingered and dispersed to seemingly more private places to share their mutual grief.

The building is old and it echoes. Those seeking a place of solitude are ever denied it here – their remote mourning bounced from wall to wall to wall as through the granite and plaster were weeping with them, the sound seeming never to fade.

The morning had been rainy. The sun was beginning to come out and filter through the old windows, brightening the auditorium. As each of those young people entered these familiar halls, they brought their innocence and the towering audacity that only those who truly believe they are immortal and entitled to life have.

It is a gruesome thing to watch words shatter it, like rocks through a window, making all their sparkle fall into shards upon the floor.

It is horrible to see the soft sunlight drift aimlessly across clenched hands, and reddening eyes, touching the beautiful curls and shining straightened locks of hair which will, later, be gripped and rent in confusion and grief.

It is impossible to look at them and not want, with all of your being, to take their pain for yourself, so that they can remain in that carefree, perfect state of existence,  and  to assure them  that they can hold on – hold ON – to their ruined belief that they are mountains which cannot be conquered by anything, including death. They ought not know how brief it can be, and how unfair. And yet, there is always a time when that must happen, and that day must come. For some sooner, for some later, for some: today.

But the sun is full out now, and the clouds have shifted from gray to white, and it is a beautiful fall day. It is a beautiful day to lose a friend, a classmate, a teammate, a brother, a son. It is beautiful day to walk out into the world, with the glitter of shattered illusions stuck, glinting, to your shoes.