Currents of Life, Currents of Death: Reflecting with Heidi
A page from my journal…
When no one attends a memorial service, where is reverence to be found?
Last Wednesday morning I drove to Prairie Sky Cemetery on Calgary’s far southeast side to officiate three public trustee services—memorials for people buried alone. Funeral home staff drive the hearse, unload, and walk the coffin to what will be the grave, now just a hole in the ground. We deliver a funeral service to no one but ourselves. And to the sky. And to clouds shifting shape as the wind whips and eases off. On rare occasions, someone arrives, having seen the obituary. Mostly, we are strangers to the person who died.
Those who know me well know that I am all about ritual. I do believe that ritual is how we recognize the importance of the people we care about. Ceremony celebrates a person’s value. And the reverence we feel—that deep respect inherent in ritual—is transformative. What (and who) felt ordinary before becomes sacred, especially when reverence appears in unexpected ways.
Since Wednesday’s services, I’ve been reflecting on why reverence matters—and how its absence at a public trustee service would be devastating.
If ritual invites us to pay attention to what matters, are memorial services still meaningful when no one who knew the deceased comes to the burial?
When no personal details are known, is it possible to truly pay attention?
Or are these moments only the shell of a ritual—an enactment of the real thing?
With these thoughts in mind, join me in my journal from last Wednesday.
(I’ve changed personal details regarding the deceased.)
It’s colder than I anticipated; I hadn’t needed a coat when I left northwest Calgary, but here on open prairie the wind is ice, and my fingers go numb in no time. All four funeral home staff are needed to lift the coffin from the hearse, place it on the wheeled trolley, and roll it across the bumpy ground, devoid of anything green except a few clumps of determined daisies. I lead the procession at a proper slow pace to the mound of dirt and the green Astroturf tarp surrounding the hole.
Two staff head back to the hearse with the trolley and will return in an hour with the next person to be buried. The three of us who remain comprise the celebrant and the guests. I move to the head of the wooden coffin while they check the its placement atop the green nylon straps holding it over the freshly dug grave. They nod that all is well and take their place at the foot.
The young guy—team lead today—sees I’m struggling to turn the first pages of my notes and insists I take his gloves. I accept; I can’t feel my fingertips, and fumbling won’t work. Public trustee services are videotaped in case, in future, family members ask about the burial. Knowing the video is running, I do not wipe my nose as it drips onto my notes. Good thing they’re in sheet protectors.
Once he’s back at the foot, I begin:
“On this November morning, we meet in a space that has been
made sacred with the spirit of life’s dignity, We gather to honour
the importance of the life of Mario.”
Behind the mound of dirt stands a backhoe whose driver has turned the engine off. I’d think iPhone videos or music might fill the time between services, but he’s taken his ballcap off. Every now and then I glance over, and from his seat in the cab he remains facing the grave.
This is what reverence looks and sounds like to me: the presence of the year’s last daisies
and a silent backhoe.
Between services, I warm up in my car. Wipe my nose. Wonder if Mario’s people know he was buried today. Check my notes, see if the poem is right for the next person—Susan. Wonder if she liked that her name meant “beauty,” connected to lilies and roses. I hear the backhoe filling in Mario’s grave.
Usually there’d be snow and ice this time of year. Today the wind blows hard and cold, and the trees are bare except for a few hangers-on. But the ground isn’t frozen. I think of Mario’s final benediction: May the good earth be gently under you when you rest upon it, and may it rest easy over you when, at the last, you lay out under it. And may it rest so lightly over you…
Susan’s service is easier to offer because my hands aren’t frozen stiff at the start. The owner of the gloves stands straight and solemn, hands in his pockets. His poppy is bright against his black coat.
“Susan was born on April 4th, 1950. That’s all that we know. We never met
Susan, and we do not know where she was born or her parents’ names.
We don’t know the stories of her life. This is really hard…. A writer I respect
says that, in the end, ‘all that we are is story.’ With this in mind, preparing for
this service, I wondered about Susan’s story. What was happening in the
world in her years? Well… I can tell you: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated;
the first human flew in space; East Germany began constructing the Berlin
Wall; there were civil rights movements and anti-nuclear protests. And also
Elvis. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. We can only wonder how Susan’s story
was shaped by her world.”
After Susan is buried, I head back to my car to warm up before the third service. The man driving the backhoe gives me a wave and a smile as I pass. It’s not lost on me that he waits until all three of us are back in our vehicles at the side of the road, far from graveside, before he turns the engine on.
Reverence.
I feel it in the details—in noticing the in-between moments, attending to the present thing until it’s fully complete, not rushing to begin the next.
When the hearse returns with the third person, Joanne, we leave our vehicles and help set the coffin on the trolley. This is trickier than it seems. When she is steady, we head for the mound of dirt.
Near the end of Joanne’s service, the wind whips up like it’s trying to turn the pages of my notes. I rest my forearm across one side and spread my hand to steady the other so I can read the final poem, When All That’s Left Is Love. I’ve adapted it slightly from Rabbi Allen S. Maller’s original words to suggest that even strangers can be connected in meaningful ways.
When I die, if you need to weep,
Cry for someone walking the street beside you.
You can love me most by letting
Hands touch hands, and souls touch souls.
You can love me most by sharing your goodness
and Multiplying your acts of kindness…
Remember love doesn’t die—people do.
So when all that’s left of me is love, give me away.
I look up at the backhoe driver, who is in my direct line of sight but out of earshot, when I say, “And so, in our respect for Joanne and the love that persists when everything else is gone… let us take a moment of silence.”
He sits tall in the seat of his backhoe.
Reverence.
The staff kneel to release the tension of the nylon straps stretched across the grave. They unwind slowly, soundlessly, gently laying the deceased down. Joanne. It takes a long time. I feel my nose dripping onto my coat.
There’s still a way to go before it reaches the bottom. I notice the straight sides of the hole’s dirt walls. I notice that the red rose the staff placed on the coffin during “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” is the exact same bright red as the poppies on their coats. I’m not sure if this is reverence or ordinary curiosity. Maybe they are one and the same.
To support your personal reflection on authentic, sacramental living:
Are there places in your life where you stand “at the edge of the mound,” wondering if reverence waits to be recognized?
Can you draw or describe this place?
Why are you there?
What you are hoping for?Who do you want to be seen and valued… deeply respected?
Why?
If you began to list moments of reverence you’ve witnessed, would some be lesser noticed ones?
What made those ones important for you?
In your daily life, what does reverence look or feel like?
What gestures—silent, practical, or unseen—carry a sacredness of their own?
How might an intention to recognize reverence guide the way you show up, even among strangers?
A final thought:
What I’ve learned in attending public trustee services is that reverence sometime takes the form of presence itself. It matters not that we don’t know the details. Maybe that’s better—there's noting to judge or try to make sense of. Only the questions: Who were you? Who are what did you love, or long to love?
In this spirit, join me in reflecting on an excerpt from comes from Raymond Carver’s poem, “Late Fragment.” I’ll be journaling as if in conversation with whoever shows up at my own funeral, whether I know them or not.
“Did you get what you wanted in this life?”
“I did.”
“And what did you want?”
“To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”
CURRENTS OF LIFE, CURRENTS OF DEATH
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
- Rumi