is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Fly away home
Saturday, November 12, 2011 There were only a few of us at the burial. The Not Boyfriend's mother was laid to rest in southern Illinois, in a college town that's not easy to get to. And because of her faith, she was to be buried quickly. The circle of us included the rabbi, her stepsister and her husband, a financial planner she befriended but had never met in person, her brother, a local woman who knew her parents, and The Not Boyfriend and me.
Not everyone knew each other. I'd only met most of them that morning. But there we were, shoulder to shoulder around a simple pine box that seemed far too small.
The Not Boyfriend's mother journeyed into her death, and that was chronicled by the poems and prayers and songs she chose for her own funeral service. Hearing them, focusing in on each word, I felt like I got to know her better. It's strange and wonderful how that can happen after a life has ended, but I felt that way many times in the week after she passed.
I pressed my shoulder into my love's body, maybe hoping to steady him. He wasn't shaking, shed only a few tears. But he was crumbling and I wanted to catch just a few of the pieces. But falling apart is what you are supposed to do when your mother dies, and while the rabbi chanted about life being just a narrow bridge, I said my own prayer of thanks to be standing beside him.
It was a beautiful fall day. The sun was shining and the wind picked up momentum across the expanse of the cemetary. The vastness, the brown and dried grass, the landscape -- it all called up images of the southern Illinois cemetary where my own grandparents are buried, a few hours away from where we stood. The grounds don't look anything alike, but the wind on that prairie land has its own way, both haunting and calming.
I took it in. And when I looked down, I noticed that a lady bug was making it's way, slowly and steadily, across the coffin.
The rabbi read a poem beloved by the Not Boyfriend's mother. And the lady bug kept on.
It disappeared over the edge at last, and I looked up to see another lady bug crawling over the rabbi's hand and on to his notebook of readings. More lady bugs arrived, swirling between the rabbi and the rest of us.
It was sweet. Until the Not Boyfriend began to speak, and a lady bug flew to his right shoulder and clung to him there. Then...then, it was something more.
The Not Boyfriend had a hard time getting the words out. But he said what was in his heart, working very hard to hold back tears and not being very successful at that part. Still, the lady bug stayed.
When he was done speaking, the lady bug left, too.
That is when the rabbi smiled and acknowledged all of the lady bugs inside our circle. Later, at the memorial service thousands of miles away in San Francisco, he recalled that moment, adding, "You never know how people will show up at their own funeral."
Just before the men took their shovels and grief to a big pile of dirt it is a privilege in their tradition to add as the coffin is lowered, the rabbi paused and offered a final prayer. The Not Boyfriend's tears flowed. And there again on his shoulder sat the winged creature.
He dug into that dirt hard. The other men stayed beside him, shoveling as he did, until we could no longer see the pine underneath the cover of dirt.
"Do you want to take a moment?" I asked him before we left the place where his mother's body would rest. He did and I walked slowly back to the car. I had a handful of memorial service cards and laminated obituaries from the funeral home and I was carrying my love's phone and a few Kleenexes from my purse. Atop it all, resting in the soft spot between my thumb and my pointer finger, was a lady bug.
I studied it for a minute and then tried to shake it away, but it wouldn't go. The lady bug stuck there until the Not Boyfriend climbed in the car, turned on the engine and rolled down the windows. That wind blew. The lady bug opened her wings wide. She flew off into the wide open.
I held on to this, in part, because I feel strongly my own grandfather's spirit emerges in a cardinal to remind us that everything will be OK. But I also held on to it because I knew it would be important to the Not Boyfriend.
We remarked about it briefly on the plane ride home, our first time flying together.
No more was said until he got back to San Francisco. The text he sent said that when he got home, there were lady bugs in his car and in his apartment.
In the weeks since, he's asked me where his lady bug is, has told me how much he'd like to see another one. She will come, I told him, I promise. And I believe she will.
Why? Because that day, all my work stress and overwhelming worries fell away when I opened the curtains by the door next to my desk and there sat three big beautiful cardinals.
Read more about:
Reader Comments