They were just beginning to carry in the chairs from the hall when we arrived.
The pews in the community church were filled to overflowing, so we waited while
an usher unfolded another row in the back and then took our seats there. My
daughter and I sat quietly, listening to the organ and watching as a few others
came into the sanctuary by the back door. There were so many in the church that
it was difficult to see the pastor rise up and begin the service. When folks
like Arnie die young, it touches so many people. It touched my daughter, who is
a friend of Arnie’s daughter. And it touched me, because it was my department
that responded to the family's call to 911 on Thanksgiving afternoon. Some of
the most difficult funerals are those
which are called to remember a young life taken. And a young life which is
extinguished on a holiday can bring added pain to a grieving family. Today there
was plenty of pain to go around. Where we were seated however, the pain was
hidden from us, filtered by rows of Arnie’s friends. In the back, the sobbing
from the front was muffled, and tears ran invisibly down faces which we could
not see. In spite of the pain, Arnie’s
may have been among the most meaningful of the funerals I have attended.
Arnie’s lifelong friend remembered him eloquently, his voice cracking with
every beat of his own broken heart. The church’s pastor, to whom Arnie was
such a friend, fought back his own emotions as he offered thanks for his
parishioner’s life. It was a beautiful service, filled with music, scripture,
and thanksgiving. But something more was at work in the little church that was
best viewed from the last row. As the congregation sang out Amazing
Grace, my eyes left the page and began to search across the sanctuary. Over
there were Harold, and Bill. Bob and his wife were in the next row. In fact,
most of the church’s congregation was there in support. They sat side by side
with Arnie’s coworkers, who were seated next to the kid’s school principals,
who were right behind the family and closest friends. There were schoolmates and
former teammates, neighbors, and way in the back, just behind the church youth
group, there was me and my daughter. Community. It just kept pounding in my
heart the whole of the service. Community. We were Arnie’s community, and
today we were all together in one place, drawn from the routine of our homes and
jobs, classrooms and holidays to bear with his family one little piece of their
pain. On the first Thanksgiving Day in 1621, a people who had endured
starvation, fire, disease, and all too much death gathered as a community to
celebrate, of all things, life. And
nearly four hundred years later, I am sitting in the back of a church struck by
how little the human spirit has changed. Arnie’s community was here, moved by
his love for each individual person, leavened by its shared suffering, and
rising up in praise of life, both present and eternal. And this is what I hope
Arnie’s family will remember each Thanksgiving for years to come. Wrapped
around every sweet memory of their father and husband, I hope they will recall
the way in which his community came together, and, in the midst of its
suffering, was able to call this one special day together... Thanksgiving.