Today we laid to rest the ashes of my Aunt Mary. She was 89, had lived a long and beautiful life, helped raise her three grandchildren after they were left without a mother, and now the three of them with nine more between them, Mary's great-grandchildren. Below is a picture of the youngest, Kassidy, born five days after Mary passed in December. So present, so alive. What a smile she has.

Had at least 50 different conversations today about everything from '64 Mercurys and aluminum heads to snow in April to thoughts of Jesus during Holy Week. Meditation, childhood, the price of sugar beets and cattle, which Psalm might have been more appropriate for the service. The rich, beautiful, varied mess that it is to be a human.

Someone said, with regard to Mary's passing, "I don't know why it has to happen, but I guess it does." The answer to this question could be different for any of us depending upon what day we're being asked, but for today, for me, the why of it is so very clear: that only with the certainty of death can life be experienced as the absolute miracle that it is.

Today, each of us rises to a new day, new possibilities, new experiences; and as meditators who continually are letting go the stresses that tend to keep us stuck in habitual ways of seeing the world, we actually are able to experience the new. I've been in this cemetery many times, buried friends and relatives here, but never today, in the snow, with this mix of people. I've been in this church countless hundreds of times, sat in these wooden pews tracing the carved design of them with my finger tips; I've gazed upon the pennants and flags, the holy cloths and the painting of Jesus; but never have I been here as this man with this life experience and with this awareness and this capacity to be present to it all. 

The power of consciousness trumps the weight of memory and history, good or bad, absolutely. With consciousness comes the capacity fully to experience our lives in each moment, up to and including the final moment, and including the final moment of our loved ones. Fully to experience life means that sometimes it will hurt, sometimes it will be uncomfortable, but always, as we fill it with consciousness, it will be filled with love.

Family Plot

Great-granddaughter at Funeral

Copyright © 2011 Jeff Kober