A sleeping bag, rolled up neatly and tied with string; a well-worn baseball cap; a fishing pole and an 8X10 color glossy of a young man smiling.

These are the things gracing the altar.

And one more thing.  A beautiful Rosewood box. 

Brian.

He was a stranger. I never met Brian, I never met anyone in his family and yet his death has touched me deeply.

He was just a few weeks older than my daughter. He died quickly; not of the cancer that was ravaging his young body but from a blood clot that suddenly took him from his mother’s arms; graciously releasing him from what the hospice nurses had feared could be a long, slow and difficult to manage dance with pain.

The church is small, an old chapel in an old town now the chosen place to honor the life of a child who will not grow old. Every window along both walls filled with tall stained glass and scriptures. The sun is setting and the light that comes through the west windows is breathtakingly beautiful. Being a little early I was seated in a pew directly behind the family with an almost uncomfortable view of the items on the altar. It takes a long time to squeeze everyone into the tiny church. I don’t realize, until after the service, why we are waiting so long for things to start. I have a long time to gaze and watch the sunlight give halos to the vases of flowers that companion the items on the altar. 

After the service when the minister invites everyone to join them in the basement for Brian’s favorite foods, Oreos and chocolate chip cookies, he asks also that we leave the church pew by pew. He instructs us to wait for the somber young man from the funeral home to indicate that it’s our turn to go. This is when I begin to understand the delay in getting started. The minister asks that each of us leave the church by going to the back of the church and circling around to the front to pass by the family to “shake hands” and “offer encouragement”. At that time I had not been to many funerals but it was not something I had seen done before and wouldn’t you know, the pew directly behind the family (yes, the very one in which I sit) is last. I sit and watch the faces of close to 300 people who had quietly, almost silently, crammed their bodies into the tiny little chapel. I watch as they pass before each family member with tearful embraces and pats on the back.

Thankfully about half way through the procession of mourners someone else from the funeral home brings a tray of water for the family. That’s when I realize I am about to die of thirst myself. I start to wonder about funeral etiquette. Would it be so awful if I were to “cut in line” as we used to say in school, and leave my pew uninvited and quietly help myself to a little blue plastic cup of water on my way out the door?

But wait. I’m jumping ahead of myself. So there I am. Waiting. And I start to think, “What if that mom were me?” What if it was my own daughter, Shelby, who died? What would I choose to place on an altar to honor who she is as a person?

She has just finished high school.

She leaves in six weeks for college.

She is the common denominator in the lives of her three closest friends.

Where would they be today, if it was Shelby in the Rosewood box?

She loves ducks. She loves sleep. She loves Nutella, crunchy peanut butter and lemonade.

She is strikingly beautiful and my heart literally aches when I think of anyone ever doing anything seriously unkind to her.

She has a glorious smile. I’m sure I would have lots of pictures of her smiling and laughing. And for music I would have every sappy country song I could find about children “going to God”.

And I would stand up and speak to who she was and what her life meant to mine.

That’s when I realize there are tears streaming down my cheeks.

That’s when I realize what that mom might be feeling ~ the loss, the anger, the bewilderment. Her grief is private. She will remain connected to her son for eternity ~ and for the remainder of her life here in this world she will carry with her his memory and the memory that she once had of how he, by his mere existence, gave her a reason to live.

Just as my daughter, Shelby, has for me.