Legacy Sun, 26th May, 2013
My reflection for this Memorial Day weekend centers on remembrance of those people, both family and dear friends, who have passed into memory. I recently heard it said—forgive me, I remember not by whom—that each of us will die three deaths.
The first is the death of the spirit. We see this reality in the vacant stares of those whose bodies remain alive but who are no longer present to us. Perhaps it's Alzheimer's or a comatose state that separates us despite the faint pulse and rhythm of breath that lingers.
Beyond this lies the second death, which is the moment that the lights go out permanently: When the heart stops, the brainwaves cease and we draw our final breath. It is after this death that our bodies return to the earth, completing the cycle of physical life.
But, more appropriate to my purpose this morning, is the third and final death, which occurs the moment after someone speaks our name for the very last time. Like the ancient tombstones from whose facades time and the elements have slowly erased our names, our very existence is in the end permanently extinguished.
The act of remembering, therefore, is an essential spiritual practice that reawakens these dearly departed spirits and keeps them alive and among us for just a little longer.
Perhaps because I am preparing my thoughts for the Father's Day service I will lead at First Unitarian, my meditation this morning centered on a memory of my paternal grandfather, Charles E. Howell. This is as surprising to me as it would be to my family, because I did not know him well and he was essentially absent from my life. In fact, he was absent for much of the lives of his children, including my father, only seeking reconnection in his later years and not fully achieving it. I have always imagined him living with decades of guilt and pain for having severed his connections and starting over with a new life, a new state and a new wife.
But thankfully that was not the end. As he approached his bodily death in the early 1990s, my grandfather apparently was contemplating that third and ultimate death and thinking about his legacy. Other than his genes, what was he leaving to the next generation? How would he be remembered? And above all was it too late for reconciliation and reconnection? Was it too late to tell us all that he loved us and was sorry that he missed most of our lives?
And so it was that this man whom I had barely known chose to clip out a classic 1930s poem from a Dear Abby newspaper column and mail it to me. Perhaps it was autobiographical, perhaps just an act of thoughtful generosity. But I will remember it always, and in so doing, will renew my grandfather's memory and his unspoken love that binds one generation to the next.
The Man In The Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please – never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.
—Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr.
My reflection for this Memorial Day weekend centers on remembrance of those people, both family and dear friends, who have passed into memory. I recently heard it said—forgive me, I remember not by whom—that each of us will die three deaths.
The first is the death of the spirit. We see this reality in the vacant stares of those whose bodies remain alive but who are no longer present to us. Perhaps it's Alzheimer's or a comatose state that separates us despite the faint pulse and rhythm of breath that lingers.
Beyond this lies the second death, which is the moment that the lights go out permanently: When the heart stops, the brainwaves cease and we draw our final breath. It is after this death that our bodies return to the earth, completing the cycle of physical life.
But, more appropriate to my purpose this morning, is the third and final death, which occurs the moment after someone speaks our name for the very last time. Like the ancient tombstones from whose facades time and the elements have slowly erased our names, our very existence is in the end permanently extinguished.
The act of remembering, therefore, is an essential spiritual practice that reawakens these dearly departed spirits and keeps them alive and among us for just a little longer.
Perhaps because I am preparing my thoughts for the Father's Day service I will lead at First Unitarian, my meditation this morning centered on a memory of my paternal grandfather, Charles E. Howell. This is as surprising to me as it would be to my family, because I did not know him well and he was essentially absent from my life. In fact, he was absent for much of the lives of his children, including my father, only seeking reconnection in his later years and not fully achieving it. I have always imagined him living with decades of guilt and pain for having severed his connections and starting over with a new life, a new state and a new wife.
But thankfully that was not the end. As he approached his bodily death in the early 1990s, my grandfather apparently was contemplating that third and ultimate death and thinking about his legacy. Other than his genes, what was he leaving to the next generation? How would he be remembered? And above all was it too late for reconciliation and reconnection? Was it too late to tell us all that he loved us and was sorry that he missed most of our lives?
And so it was that this man whom I had barely known chose to clip out a classic 1930s poem from a Dear Abby newspaper column and mail it to me. Perhaps it was autobiographical, perhaps just an act of thoughtful generosity. But I will remember it always, and in so doing, will renew my grandfather's memory and his unspoken love that binds one generation to the next.
The Man In The Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please – never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.
—Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr.
Silhouetteby George Hodan
