|
wednesdays |
|
<< back
Everyone is giddy and laughing. Fourteen of us, preoccupied by our worlds held at bay and darting first memories of All Souls past. Filing along that old path that winds over the knoll and through the small stands of trees in the vast central cemetery, my eyes are squinting to see the end, or maybe just twinkling for reasons unknown. Jour de morts my father’s father intoned as he reached down for the tiny grasps of my sister and me, double stepping to his manly strides: us, all knee britches and dirndl. His parent’s monument was always decorated in advance, a delicate garland: flowers and vine. The memory of them is lost with the story of another world. Remembered as fact, but little else. He prayed over us (this I know) in his old sing-song-y French that he had inherited, that Daddy never learned, or sis… let alone me. He prayed to the great Dieu who gave us and every thing this blessed vie. Particularly he gave thanks for the life of his family, those flowing down the little hillside and under it as well. He touched my forehead and gave me his blessing, Grand-père, like his only brother the family’s priest before him. Father Martin, so young and vital, forever that: a year and a date…still over there to the right. Mom’s family were German and the flowers were brought in armfuls, carried to the cemetery and tossed on the graves making raucous and more protestant the old Gaulish manners The mother of my children, fanned out behind me this day, was Viennese. That is a different thing all together. For her this day there will be flowers, sure, and a smiling tear for her new-turned earth. Her grandkids have rocks in their hands, pebbles really, from each one’s separate home. They will place them on headstones of roman numerals and faint engravings. They’ll place them on the top the way she taught their parents, the way her parents taught her. The arms of her children are filled with baskets of bread, sausages, cheese and fruit. We kneel down and touch the grass and spread the red checked cloth of our family’s picnic. We gather in faith, joy and sadness. We remember the faith these old ones shared and hope we pass it on to this one here and that one there. We bless God for the lives we’ve only heard of and for the lives of these with us, around us, bowed down before the trees whose up-stretched arms give praise to the God of all. We give thanks. The food for our day is also the food of a new and unending life. With mouths full, laughing and talking we tell our story again only to be interrupted by the La la - Blah la of the littlest one, sixteen months of padded Pampers in Osh Kosh overalls teetering on the spongy turf. Her La las are her version of my daughter’s kindermusik and the song that sings her to sleep. It’s Jesus Loves Me, sort of. It’s arms outstretched, not unlike those trees over there. It is nothing more than the natural worship of the God who creates all things. And so we tell the little ones and by this, we trust, their unseen little ones as well. La la. She rants then topples, a header into the grass that cloaks her ancestors. There is a light that shines on from beyond, before the deepest past; it shines through me, through them. It never ends. Amen. —Bruce Colville
|
|
