A Beautiful Day For A Funeral...

The purpose of our recent trip to Hot Springs was to attend the funeral of my wife's Uncle Dick. His demise was startlingly sudden: he was a strong, vigorous man who left us just as if one day a door had opened, he walked through, it closed and he was gone. The day of his burial was warm and shiningly clear... a beautiful day for a funeral. If this comment seems odd, let me explain: before my retirement from medicine, one of the biggest joys for me was caring for, and getting to know, the plain, bare-bones midwesterners who made up the bulk of my medical practice. Stoic and unassuming in good times, when facing hopeless illness and their demise they became almost noble; accepting and at peace with the path that lay before them. I will always remember a man I saw on consultation one dark November; a man I diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. He had not had an easy life, and was rather alone in the world. After his diagnosis and his fate sank in, he told me that he understood his lot, and didn't resent it, but that he only hoped that he would last until spring, because he just didn't want to die in winter. As a fellow midwesterner, having lived through many gloomy winters, I immediately understood how he felt, and nodded my head. He had stripped all of the dreams and frills from his life, and got down to the essentials: his one humble wish was that he might survive long enough to be buried on a bright, warm spring day, ringing with birdsong and redolent with the smell of mown grass and dark, wet earth. This man was from a small town some distance away, and I never had the opportunity to see him again or learn if his wish was granted him. I know Uncle Dick, who in his final few days chatted with each family member about old memories they shared, and then calmly discussed practical matters that needed to be taken care of after he died... I know that he was glad that he'd be buried on a soft spring day, with the bluebirds that he loved, singing all around... a beautiful day for a funeral.