This Do in Remembrance of Me

Collegiate Church of St. Boniface, Freckenhorst, Germany

For every Sunday I can remember before going off to university, I sat on the front row of my preacher dad’s church tracing with my mind’s eye the Old English letters on the Holy Communion table in front of the pulpit:

 

 

I’m guessing everyone here knows not only WHO said that but WHEN and WHERE, no matter what religious background.  Eucharist words.

But when you trace things like that, repeatedly, over and over again, they become stuck somewhere in your subconscious, taking on a mind of their own.  That’s probably why I took a calligraphy class in a past life and inscribed names on Dale Carnegie certificates.  Before that, in another life of wild dreams and great expectations, I labored over the Book of Kells as a female scribe!

Did you know that, over recorded history, Easter Sunday has occurred as early as March 22^nd and as late as April 25^th.  That’s a spread!

It goes like this:  Jesus’ death and resurrection occurred at the time of the Jewish Passover, which was celebrated on the first full moon following the vernal equinox.  By 325CE the Christians (à la the Council of Nicaea) decided Easter would fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

Got it?

And what is the vernal equinox, you ask???  And when???  SPRING!  And it starts tomorrow.

So, today is March 19, and I’m definitely in the ballpark…even though Easter isn’t until April 20^th this year.  It’s confusing, isn’t it!

All of that to explain why NOW, today, I’m thinking about Easter and how it has taken on a mind of its own.

It so happens that my dad, Carl Clarence, died on the Wednesday before Easter in 1995.  A year later, my brother, Bennett Williams, died a month before Easter.  A year later, my mom, Barbara Nelson, died 30 minutes before Easter.  (Three of my bright morning stars!)

Not that I come to this time of the year wondering if another of my 6 remaining siblings or our children or grandbabies will die, mind you, but rather that it’s a time of remembrance for me now…of those already passed...more than at any other time of the year. 

In fact, what I mean to say about this new mind of its own, is that when we remember those who have died, we start naming our children after them.  Have you noticed? 

Olive Nelson Bennett Sidney Rueben Reuel Barbara Carl Clarence Hodges Susan Elizabeth Virginia Louise Nancy Rebecca Williams James Thomas John Stephen Ruth Ann.

Every one of those names has either been passed on from the generations above and/or to the generations below.  I say generations, plural, because, one name, Ann, was just recently passed to the 3^rd generation below mine in our Hart Tribe.  Another name, Olive, set to be born any day now, comes from 4 generations above.  That’s a spread!

Death is about remembering.  Dying to not forget because nothing lives forever.  Right now we’re dying for spring.  We know it will come, just like every year before.  We don’t doubt it.  We expect it.  We add a spring to our step in anticipation.

It’s the cycle we relive over and over again:  death--resurrection.  The one thing we know for sure is it IS a cycle.  It’s not stuck!  And the good news about that is…we all remember! 

THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME

Death Has Its Reason

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?????

     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 100^th 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!