A Preview of My Funeral

So, it may sound morbid, but I've had death on the brain lately.

Mike's grandmother died a little over a month ago, and, less than a week later, an aunt of mine. Both were wise, no-nonsense, hard-working Midwestern farm wives and mothers who handled, with grit and grace, more chaos than I'll likely ever see. My aunt, as just one example, raised sixteen children. How's that for a dose of humility, when I can barely handle our two?

We were lucky to have made it back to Iowa for a two day visit with Great-Grandma, in her final hours. As is common in the life of a church worker, however, it was necessary for us to return to Sioux Falls for Sunday services in order for Mike to conduct Rutter's Gloria, a major work with choir and orchestra that had been the subject of extensive rehearsal in weeks prior. Great-Grandma took her last breath at approximately the same moment Mike began conducting the final movement -- apropos in light of her and Grandpa's contribution to Mike's deep love of music, beginning with the gift of his first piano, rescued from a chicken coop and lovingly restored by Grandpa Leonard so that Mike might take his first lessons.

Mike took the timing as a "sign," a trait he shares with his grandmother. A deeply devoted Catholic, Great Grandma regularly prayed novenas for the intercession of St. Theresa of Avila on behalf of whatever extended family member might be in trouble. I'll admit to being a firmly lapsed Catholic, but even I'm convinced that Grandma had something special going with her belief in the power of persistent and faithful prayer. St. Theresa's "sign" was a blooming rose. Whenever Grandma saw one out of context -- springing from a crack in the sidewalk or blooming at an odd time of year, for example -- she was assured that her prayers were being heard. Perhaps not always answered in the way we might have preferred, but certainly heard and, via those roses, acknowledged.

Ethan, our junior theologian from an early age, took the news of Great-Grandma's death much more easily than his father. Having missed a violin lesson in our efforts to make haste back to Iowa, he attended a make-up lesson the day after her death, shortly before a second trip back for the funeral was arranged. His teacher, unaware that Grandma had made the transition from gravely-ill to graveward-bound, inquired as to her status:

Maria: Ethan, how is your Great Grandma doing?

Ethan: Oh, she's MUCH better. She died.

To him, it was just that simple. He asked me, recently, if heaven was a nice place to be. "I think so," I replied, "though I've never really been there."

"Isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?" he also once asked, several years ago, after an impromptu bird funeral in the back yard of our Duluth home. He was no more than two and a half years old, and had become morbidly fascinated with a dead bird he found in the driveway one afternoon.

"How did that bird die, Mom?"

"I don't know, buddy. Maybe its heart just broke."

"Hmm. What happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"To the bird. What happens?"

"Well, I suppose the bird goes to bird heaven." I'll admit, I was punting here.

"Will he get a new heart?"

"Maybe," I hedged, honestly a bit befuddled at finding myself suddenly embroiled in a theological discussion with a two-year-old.

"Well, isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?"

"I suppose so, sweetheart. Sounds good to me."

A few days later, we were eating breakfast on the back porch, when a bird flew by the big picture window.

"Hey, mom, that bird got his heart fixed," Ethan mentioned, casually, as if resurrection were as common as the peanut butter toast and orange juice sitting in front of him.

"I guess so, " I played along, smiling.

And the subject was dropped, as though a dead bird, fully risen from the dead and flying by our back window, was just the start to another run-of-the-mill day of toddlerhood.

I realize the conversation itself was pretty simple, but, I've recalled that particular exchange on several occasions in the three-plus years since. It always comforts me to realize the ease and confidence with which small children understand and accept concepts like heaven and resurrection and eternal life, when adults are prone to cynicize and complicate and scrutinize and theorize them to the brink of destruction.

A few short months after the bird conversation, I was hospitalized, at 27 weeks gestation with my daughter, for a serious and life-threatening condition. Two blood clots had made their way to my lungs, and I spent about 18 hours in atrial fibrillation before converting back to a regular heart rhythm.

Upon seeing me in the hospital bed, Ethan asked, quite innocently, "What's wrong, Mommy?"

"Well, Mom's heart isn't beating quite right," I answered, breaking my soft policy of NEVER falling into the cutesy, 3rd person, "mommy" habit.

"Are you going to go to heaven, so Jesus can fix it?" he asked, at which point my nervous husband nearly fainted.

"Well, we're going to see what the doctors can do, first, sweetie, but I'll certainly keep that in mind."

Fast forward three more years, and Ethan's peculiar fascination with death and resurrection still abides.

I'm not sure I'm still on his list of those bound for heaven, though.

Shortly after moving into our Sioux Falls home, with Ethan at age four and Abigail around 18 months, I was running to rescue my potty-fascinated daughter from the disgusting contents of an unflushed toilet,a gift from her elder brother. Unbeknownst to me, the tiled floor of the bathroom was already slick with a quarter inch of standing water. In keeping with my penchant for unintended pratfalls, I hit the water running, lost my footing, and crashed to the floor, taking a head butt from the bathtub on the way down.

Ethan, startled at the noise, wasted no time in pinning the blame.

"Abby! You KILLED her!!"

Dazed, slightly teary, and having lost the use of my twisted ankles, I lay there, semi-conscious, nowhere near a phone, mentally willing Mike to sense my ESP 911 distress call.

Meanwhile, the kids were quickly contented and seemingly quite comfortable with my untimely demise. At least they were respectful about it, though. Before returning to their super-sized Legos and Care Bears video, they both located their favorite blankies, and laid them over my face. Less work for the coroner that way, I suppose.

More recently, they seem to have lost the sense of respect that accompanied this first preview of my funeral.

About a week ago, while attempting to keep myself motivated on the treadmill, I employed the use of a knock-off iPod I had purchased a couple of years ago, but rarely used. The iPod was loaded with exactly one song, "How You Live" by contemporary Christian artists, Point of Grace. I'm not generally a big fan to Christian radio, but I heard this song at church one day, sung by a woman suffering stage four lung cancer and singing to her young daughter in the congregation, and I fell in love with it.

Driven by the climactic lyrics, "Now is the time to begin . . . " I cranked the treadmill speed a few notches higher and prepared for my first EVER "runner's high." My attempt at achieving cardio-nirvana ended abruptly, as one wrong step sent me flying, ass over armpits, off the back of the moving treadmill. My legs caught the "safety" hand rails, my head slammed into the wall, and the moving belt completed the "purging" action of my least favorite piece of exercise equipment, leaving me in a mangled heap on the floor immediately behind the beast.

Curious, but none too shocked (I suppose they've become accustomed to this kind of thing by now), the kids wandered over and casually surveyed the damage.

Without a word, but seizing their opportunity, they promptly stole the iPod off my lifeless carcass.

This time, I didn't even get the blankies.