Forsaken

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee. This is one of those posts that is just personal therapy. No politics. No causes. Not much humor.  So feel free to move on to cat videos if you wish.

Normally I try to slow things down on Friday to get a running start for the weekend. More like a jog or a steady walk. A warm-down.   My success in that effort varies from week to week. It did not work this week. Full sprint all day.  I think I pulled something.

Friday was surreal.

Friday morning I stood alone for awhile at a grave site in the Birmingham area, waiting on a hearse to arrive.  The funeral, a graveside service, was scheduled for 11:00 a.m.  Like many large cemeteries, it was difficult to know where to go, especially when there was no crowd gathering, no hearse, no anything.  So when I arrived I drove around the winding lanes, straining my eyes.  There were several tents set up for burial services throughout the beautifully landscaped grounds, in full bloom with beautiful flowers, some of which were real..  There were no signs or names posted, so as I drove close to the various tents  I looked for how things were set up.  I was looking for a plot set up for a cremation, so if I saw the huge heavy lid of a vault sitting near the tent, I knew I was in the wrong place.

The other clue was chairs.  I passed two or three sites.  They all had the traditional two or three rows of velvet covered chairs set up in the shelter and shade of the tents, a place of rest for a crowd of grieving  family and friends.  Then I spotted one down the hill. It was different.

It had no chairs.

I walked down the sloping sod and there was the headstone of the previously deceased husband lying on the side of the AstroTurf covered hole. The last name correct.  I had arrived. But no one else had. Not even the deceased. There were a couple of guys close by trimming the grounds with weed-eaters, and they nodded and smiled comfortingly as their machines droned in harmony like huge bumblebees among the artificial decorations.

The sun was shining, a brisk spring wind was blowing, as if scripted.  Gunshots rang out in rapid fire That didn't seem so scripted. . I was happy to find out later that the cemetery's neighbor was a Jefferson County firing range.  After a few minutes of standing there alone, the black hearse rolled up with one car following.  A man and woman who had befriended the deceased and visited her in the nursing home exited the car.  The three of us walked with the funeral director to the back of the hearse, watched as the urn was removed and carried to the grave site, and collectively wondered what to do next.

The gentle man who had arrived in the car pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, a copy of a poem that he knew she liked.  He spoke a few words. It only took a minute or so. And he offered a prayer.  The words he spoke and the prayer he offered made it clear that this was a couple who had taken time out of their lives in the past couple of years to learn something about another life that needed company.   It was a moment of grace in what seemed like a graceless morning.

Because of the funeral the rest of my day was compacted.  The afternoon was full of other strange things, but just the kind of things that normally come up at work.

So it was with a sense of relief that I put the work week in the rear view mirror and headed back to Birmingham to see John Prine in concert.  He was even better than my expectation.. His band was spot on.. His warm up act, a newcomer from Huntsville, Alabama, Shelly Colvin, sang her own songs beautifully, accompanied by a guitarist from the Old Crow Medicine Show. I  was so impressed I went out to the table during intermission and bought her CD. (The artists make more money if you do that instead of downloading). As it turns out she was standing alone at the end of the merchandise table, where she had been signing her CD's.  She was still in disbelief that she had been the warm-up for John Prine.  I would not be surprised if someone will be warming up for her someday. She signed my CD, "to mom" because she thought I had said "mom" instead of "Bob."  We laughed and decided to leave it that way, and then I won't have to worry about Mother's day shopping.

After the concert I walked out of Alys Stephens among the crowd that was still feeling the effects of a brilliant performance.  I was part of the crowd, but as we fanned out toward our cars, loneliness, which seemed to be the theme of the day, grew stronger and stronger as the voices of the people faded.

Maybe that's not a bad thing to experience for awhile, even for a season,  especially as we approach Holy Week and contemplate the betrayal and loneliness of Jesus. But I don't like it.

Most of the way home I found myself singing to myself the words I had just heard from John Prine, and his great song Angel from Montgomery:

" .  .  . Just give me one thing, that I can hold on to.  To believe in this living is just a hard way to go."

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