I don't write enough about what I think about most.

Click to enlarge: I thought this was a pretty picture; it's from the Diocese of Newcastle website; the Diocese of Newcastle is in St John's Terrace, North Shields, England. I don't know if the picture is from a Newcastle cemetery or just decorative. I presume it's an English cemetery.

Today [2013-04-01] while picking up Dee Dee from morning daycare at Holy Spirit (a change for us, we usually use p.m., but we are trying something new for spring break), a funeral was concluding next door in the sanctuary.

The parking lot was nearly empty, so I was surprised that there was a hearse and priest and a small gathering at the door that was paying its last respects.

I parked my car and went into the school to get Dee Dee. This would have been about noon. As we returned to the car, a very old man was walking alone from the funeral to his car.

He was gray and bent and walked slowly. He and I and Dee Dee were the only three living things in the deserted parking lot. There was no procession. No long line of cars to the cemetery.

I think someone very old with few mourners had been in that hearse, and that man was among the few who were there to say good-bye.

Sometimes funerals are accompanied by sun and blue sky, greenery and flowers and singing birds, and you look around at the young couples, restless children, sleeping babies, and take comfort in all the lives the departed touched, many who otherwise would not be there.

But not so that day.

I wanted to say something, but I didn't. What to say?

He didn't even know I was there.

I wondered if he was a husband, or a brother or a close friend, and if, like all of us, he was pondering his own departure at that time, and how few would remain to mourn him.

I pondered this all afternoon.

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Something little like this would have otherwise gone forgotten, had I not recorded it here, since Dee Dee is too little to remember. It's that way with most of what happens each day.

[2013-04-01]

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Click to enlarge: Jesus says to the crowd, "Let you who are without sin cast the first stone."

Unrelated:
I once argued with a minister's wife if she would permit a prostitute to continue attending our church if the prostitute didn't change her ways. She said no, and wouldn't budge.

Who gets to decide when we've forgiven enough?

(Nobody I know would remember her, and I honestly don't recall her name. This was Grand Rapids, not Erie.)

[2013-04-07]

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