“Death comes in
threes.”
I have heard that rather strange observation all of my life.
It was the voice of a belief
that if one person dies in a small town, three will die. This saying
has been passed on from generation to generation. I heard it then; I
hear it now.
I guess this statement is true
enough if we wait long enough. Sooner or later, three people are going
to die. I have never figured out what boundaries of time or geography
are applied to his rule.
People die. We are told that
people die in threes. We lose good folks and then just as we have done
for generations, we gather close. We share the pain while celebrating
the life of the deceased. We realize that each person who comes into
our lives is a miracle. We share a collective memory. We care deeply
and we grieve deeply. We are bound by a shared emptiness.
Three people have died. All
three were what would be considered local folks. Three people known well
to my family. They left us in a moment, but we have known them for
years. Yes, we know the departed. We know their family members—both
the living and the dead.
We cry. We laugh to keep from
crying more. We know what to do. We are fish that have swum in these
waters before.
My favorite song is “What a
Wonderful World” by Louie Armstrong. I listen to it often during times
of stress. I listen to it after a messenger brings the news of a death
of a friend or loved one. The song brings hope. It brings strength. It
brings tears.
A fellow by name of Pericles
once said, “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone
monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. “ Pericles must
have lived in a small town. It is difficult to live in a small town for
very long without having your life entwined with the lives of others.
The life of a man or a woman impacts others and so does the death of
that individual.
We circle the wagons and find
strength in the faces of the familiar.
In an effort to sort things
out, we look to the sky as though there might be an answer there. We
see a thousand tiny stars blinking above us. We cannot be sure, but it
appears that three of them are shining brighter than the others.
We wonder why we need to suffer
a loss, but we don’t question God’s wisdom. That’s not our style. We
know there is a purpose to all things.
There is an old joke that tells
of the widow, Betty. She was telling her friend of the death of her
long-time husband, Fred.
“He went out to the garden.
Fred liked his garden. He bent over to cut some lettuce and pull some
carrots for dinner when he dropped dead right on the spot from a heart
attack.”
“What did you
do?” asked her friend.
“Oh, I had
some frozen peas instead.”
We each deal with grief in our own way.
We hug one another. We don’t
want to let go for fear of losing someone else.
We say the things we feel. The
words fall short. They are never enough. There never seems to be the
right words to express what we feel.
I listen to a beautiful voice
at a funeral sing about coming to the garden alone. The song never
fails to bring a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. I have
listened to that same song at so many funerals.
Faith, friends and a favorite
hymn help us get through this. Dorothy was right; there is no place
like home--home and the friends who were made there. Her friend, the
Wizard of Oz said, “A heart is not judged by how much it loves, but how
much it is loved by others.” We draw together to demonstrate love. We
make it through until tomorrow because we have good friends today.
The memories of the dearly
departed are indeed the wind beneath our wings. We gain strength from
their goodness. We stand tall on the shoulders of those who go on
before us. We remember the beautiful moments. We mourn soulfully over
our losses. We absorb the pain.
Three people have died.
There is a sadness that we
think will never leave.
Then we see a baby’s smile.
©Al Batt 2003
71622 325 St.
Hartland, MN
56042
SnoEowl@aol.com |
