What a final thing the funeral is. We can no longer avoid the stark reality of death, the glaring fact that the person who was once our life, our sweetness and our hope, is no longer among us.

For me, the rituals were incredibly helpful. The prayers, the actions, the symbolic ways in which we marked the passing of this beloved mother, wife, grandmother had a power which affirmed the tremendous importance of this individual person, yet also reminded us of the larger picture, of the life which goes on and which cannot ever be changed in any fundamental way. Mom’s funeral was truly the most beautiful ceremony I have ever attended. It was about her and it was about us and it was about God and heaven and the community of saints to which she so clearly belongs.There was sorrow, no doubt. For Dad in particular, the center of his life has been taken and he will have to find a new balance, a new focus, and that will be very hard and very painful.

But the ceremonies! The prayers! The glories the Church offers! I was overwhelmed with gratitude to Jim Morse, our priest and family friend of so many years for the way in which he presided over it all – just the right words, just the right understanding of what Mom’s life meant and how important she was to so many people. In a time of such overwhelming loss, to have the comfort of the entire community of God holding us close, participating and bearing it with us – it was amazing.