The 12th Station of the Cross
in the Maria Magdalenakerk, Goes, Netherlands.
Today is the 2nd Easter Day here in the Netherlands,
an official holiday. So, because it’s still Easter….
In my conservative, protestant, Christian,
evangelical, preacher’s-home heritage of Easter, death was always-always-always
connected to resurrection. Death never sat alone. Easter was proof
for what we believed in, that life comes after death.
The joke, however, was that we Protestants could
always pick out our Roman Catholic friends by the crucifixes they wore.
While our crosses sat “empty,” their Jesuses hung forever dying around
their necks.
I don’t quibble over these things anymore. Nor
do I feel sacrilegious in how the joke might go in my home these days:
Ginnie: Did you read
the article about how the use of microwaves causes cancer?
Ginnie: What do the Dutch think about the butter vs. margarine debate?
Ginnie: You eat animal fat?????
Ginnie: What do the Dutch think about the butter vs. margarine debate?
Ginnie: You eat animal fat?????
Astrid: But…death has
to have a reason! Something’s gonna kill you.
Think about George Burns who was guilty of everything that should have killed him decades before his 100th year. “He had good genes,” they said. As opposed to my dad who died of lung cancer at age 78, having never smoked a day in his life! “He had the gene,” said the hospice nurse.
Think about George Burns who was guilty of everything that should have killed him decades before his 100th year. “He had good genes,” they said. As opposed to my dad who died of lung cancer at age 78, having never smoked a day in his life! “He had the gene,” said the hospice nurse.
Then there’s Mom who faithfully did all those brain
teasers that supposedly protect us from dementia, right? Besides loving
crossword puzzles, she’d play solitary Scrabble with a goal to beat 1,000
points every game, which she often achieved. And oh yes, she also played
the piano and organ, composed cantatas, directed the church choir, taught
women’s classes, and raised 8 kids. Officially, she died of
Alzheimer’s. She must have had the gene.
Remember that gravestone epitaph, “I told you I was
sick!”
My brother Bennett, 3 years my junior, died of severe
arteriosclerotic heart disease at age 47. By occupation he delivered
parcels in a courier van all over the Midwest, but by hobby he was a
photographer and was in the process of building his log house. A
strapping young mountain man, you’d say, if you saw him in his flowing beard
and flannel shirts. The every-6-months physical required for his job
never detected his arteries were clogged. Maybe he, too, had the gene?
To be honest, this is how I think it works: Mom
officially died of Alzheimer’s but in actuality died peacefully in her sleep
one abnormally lucid evening…30 minutes before Easter Sunday. What was
the reason? I ‘spect it was Dad, her husband, who was buried two years
previously the Saturday before Easter. My brother Bennett, her son, died
a year after Dad, a month before Easter. He was the only one of us 8 kids
who never married or had children. He loved driving Mom and Dad all over
the back roads of Michigan. I think both he and Dad were tired of waiting
for her and just said: “C’mon, Mom, it’s time! Let’s celebrate this
Easter together.”
Not that I advocate an eat-drink-and-be-merry,
happy-go-lucky, toss-everything-to-the-wind lifestyle (more like “moderation in
everything”), but sometimes I think we get too crazy about what might kill
us. Does death really scare us that much? When did we forget that
life comes after death? Actually, it also comes before death and
may make shaving off a couple years worth some of the fun?
Death is in our genes. It's gonna happen!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it happened peacefully in our sleep one night…for
absolutely no reason at all. Not that we get to choose, of course, but
what a way to go!
