Three Times a Charm

Well, they say that deaths come in threes. This week they did. From the suicide of a co-worker's brother to two deaths in my church family, this has been a time of funerals. A funeral to commemorate the long life of Milton, a person of varied interests and a thoughtful man, who made himself comfortable in a Sunday School class made up of younger folk. A funeral to celebrate the shorter life of a fellow church worker-bee who fought a good but short battle against pancreatic cancer.

What I realized was that I knew only a small portion of these people. Even though I had spent much time with Brad, I knew little about him. Now I envy those who knew him better.

Habit perhaps drives me to poetry to express how I feel at these times. Mary Oliver is a great poet and usually has written something that speaks to me. I hope that you enjoy it.

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.