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all souls
man, nothing like being in church when half the choir is in tears, eh?
the first non-bible reading tonight was from this article:
and it's two years tomorrow since my aunt died, so i'll tell you what -- i held it together through the anthem, but through the next couple of readings and the prayers, i buried my face in my hands and wept. i could hear other choir members sniffling around me, as well; we'd all just about collected ourselves in time for the next hymn, which was 'abide with me' and did nothing useful for anyone's composure.
the first non-bible reading tonight was from this article:
The lists were limitless. First of all, a cooking rota was drawn up, allocating each of us a night of the week to make supper, assisted by a meal plan compiled by our mother. ... Some of her lists addressed mundane practicalities: what to buy for the weekly shop, when to see the dentist. Then there were the one-off categories: who to send Christmas cards to, where to buy birthday presents. Page by page, the anatomy of her entire life was broken down into series of meticulous, precise instructions. ...
There were also lists for the life she wouldn't see and would have to guess at. There were her notes on hypothetical motherhood, anticipating needs of teenagers she would never know, and so by necessity they were endlessly contingent; if such-and-such were to happen to her second son, say, then so-and-so might be a good person to ask for help, and so on.
She worried about the novels we might not read, and drew up a list of recommendations for each child, with a suggested age at which each might best be introduced. She thought I would like EM Forster. ...
When our mother became ill, it was naturally understood that information about her illness would be shared with all of us. The nature of cancer was carefully explained, as was the likely course of her gradual decline. We were warned that the man who delivered her oxygen tanks to the house had an unnerving tendency to drop to his knees and pray at her bedside, and that we weren't to laugh or be alarmed. She explained that were one of us to argue with her, and she were to die that night, we weren't to feel guilty or worry about it. After she'd died, we might imagine that we saw her, or heard her voice, but that was quite normal, and nothing to fear. ...
So well-prepared were we for these eventualities that when none materialised, I think I felt mildly disappointed. The narrative of tragedy taking place in our home, as our mother grew sicker, had been superseded by a meta-narrative about the triumph of knowledge over fear. We were led to understand that some families kept terminal illness a secret, their children deceived into thinking the dying parent would get better. But we were blessed with the truth, and the implication seemed to be that we therefore had nothing to fear. Information would conquer all. ...
Our mother told us everything about her death, except that it devastated her, and everything about dying, except that it would break our hearts. She couldn't tell the unbearable truth that her death was a disaster from which we would never recover, no matter how many lists she wrote.
and it's two years tomorrow since my aunt died, so i'll tell you what -- i held it together through the anthem, but through the next couple of readings and the prayers, i buried my face in my hands and wept. i could hear other choir members sniffling around me, as well; we'd all just about collected ourselves in time for the next hymn, which was 'abide with me' and did nothing useful for anyone's composure.
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We had a chruch service some years ago shortly after a local disaster and sang a hymn specially written for the occasion - the choir started the tears and the whole church joined in by the end!
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