A day of mourning.
Over the past few years, my mother's mother, younger brother, and father have all died, and today we finally interred their ashes in our local family plot.
It was, as you might imagine, quite a hard morning for for us all. It was a simple event, led gallantly by my mother. We aren't religious, and my mother didn't want to deal with hosting the greater family, so it was just my parents, mr. muse, and me there. We scattered flowers over their containers of ashes after they were in the ground, as so many people have done for millennia (archaeologists have found flowers still on the sarcophagi in some ancient Egyptian tombs), and read a poem for each member of the family.
For my grandmother, at her request (and very much with a touch of ego involved, I think, at wanting to be remembered in everything), we read "Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep":
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
− mary elizabeth frye - 1932
(I commented to the family later that I got around her commandment by sitting at her grave and weeping, since I'd brought a chair to make things easier on my foot.)
For my grandfather, we read the guiding poem of his life, which he'd read as a young man and taken deeply to heart, always doing his own thing and living his life his way, "Invictus":
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
− William Ernest Henley
And for my uncle, whose life was forever changed by the Vietnam War and whose soaring, loving spirit was never broken even when the cancer caused by the chemicals of the war killed him so many years later, we read words written by a young man who didn't come home from that war, also inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial, "In Honor of All Lost Veterans":
If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
At the end, for all us, we read ancient words about the eternal struggle of remembering life in the shadow of death, "In the Presence of Death":
In the presence of death, we must continue to sing the song of life.
We must be able to accept death and go from its presence better able to bear our burdens and to lighten the load of others.
Out of our sorrows should come understanding. Through our sorrows, we join with all of those before who have had to suffer and all of those who will yet have to do so.
Let us not be gripped by the fear of death. If another day be added to our lives, let us joyfully receive it, but let us not anxiously depend on our tomorrows.
Though we grieve the deaths of our loved ones, we accept them and hold on to our memories as precious gifts.
Let us make the best of our loved ones while they are with us, and let us not bury our love with death.
− Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It was a hard day. But the sun shone bright upon us all and the beautiful flowers we brought to mark their graves, there was laughter amidst the tears, and we did not bury our love today as we buried the ashes of those now gone.
It was, as you might imagine, quite a hard morning for for us all. It was a simple event, led gallantly by my mother. We aren't religious, and my mother didn't want to deal with hosting the greater family, so it was just my parents, mr. muse, and me there. We scattered flowers over their containers of ashes after they were in the ground, as so many people have done for millennia (archaeologists have found flowers still on the sarcophagi in some ancient Egyptian tombs), and read a poem for each member of the family.
For my grandmother, at her request (and very much with a touch of ego involved, I think, at wanting to be remembered in everything), we read "Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep":
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
− mary elizabeth frye - 1932
(I commented to the family later that I got around her commandment by sitting at her grave and weeping, since I'd brought a chair to make things easier on my foot.)
For my grandfather, we read the guiding poem of his life, which he'd read as a young man and taken deeply to heart, always doing his own thing and living his life his way, "Invictus":
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
− William Ernest Henley
And for my uncle, whose life was forever changed by the Vietnam War and whose soaring, loving spirit was never broken even when the cancer caused by the chemicals of the war killed him so many years later, we read words written by a young man who didn't come home from that war, also inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial, "In Honor of All Lost Veterans":
If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
At the end, for all us, we read ancient words about the eternal struggle of remembering life in the shadow of death, "In the Presence of Death":
In the presence of death, we must continue to sing the song of life.
We must be able to accept death and go from its presence better able to bear our burdens and to lighten the load of others.
Out of our sorrows should come understanding. Through our sorrows, we join with all of those before who have had to suffer and all of those who will yet have to do so.
Let us not be gripped by the fear of death. If another day be added to our lives, let us joyfully receive it, but let us not anxiously depend on our tomorrows.
Though we grieve the deaths of our loved ones, we accept them and hold on to our memories as precious gifts.
Let us make the best of our loved ones while they are with us, and let us not bury our love with death.
− Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It was a hard day. But the sun shone bright upon us all and the beautiful flowers we brought to mark their graves, there was laughter amidst the tears, and we did not bury our love today as we buried the ashes of those now gone.