This is Good Friday.
I awoke and remembered I needed to get in touch with a woman whose son died a year ago this past February in a one car accident. This young man’s death was listed in the paper and my husband and I read about it and decided we needed to go to his funeral.
We did not know him or his family, but there were things said about him in the article that made us feel this was the passing of a great soul; and so, we did something we have never done before, we went to a funeral uninvited.
The funeral was held outdoors in a park to accommodate the hundreds that showed up. Prayer flags were waving through the trees and the memorial program was handed to us with a recent photo of him grinning and resting on top of Mt. Maud after a tramp up this mountain. It was a picture of him in the environment he loved—the great outdoors.
But, to counter-balance this picture, on the back of the program was a picture of him with his logo for a muffin making business he had developed. The memorial program had the Muff Man sitting on Mt. Maud, and inside this tribute was printed for him:
There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their name to time.
I had a friend:
he lived and died in mighty silence
and with dignity,
left no book, son, or lover to mourn.
Nor is this a mourning song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk,
fragrant, dark and softly white
under the pale of mist.
I name this mountain after him.
Leonard Cohen
My husband and I sat in awe as people came up before the crowd to reveal what this young man had done for their lives. It was an incredible display of a life lived at a normal pace with hyper-drive results. This twenty-four year old had affected as many, if not more, than any eighty year-old statesman. He was already a legend and we never knew him, but had intuited him to be someone of Great Spirit by what was said in his death notice.
Ironically, this young man and I share the same birthday. And so, my husband called this young man’s mother on our birthdays and put her on the phone with me so that I could tell her this:
For the first six months after Mark’s death, his funeral program sat on top of our refrigerator where he had the pride of position in our kitchen. (He loved to feed people so much that one day he dug up his parents’ yard to plant vegetables for the neighbours. And, his muffin making business was born out of his desire to share good food with friends).
A few months ago I moved his program to my ‘family alter’ next to a picture of me with my father. There are candles, a bell, a heart painting my daughter made, little sculptures the grandchildren made and three sweet treats lying at the bottom of Mark’s feet for the memory of the three things he shared with me after he died…
Faith, love and hope….the faith that there are mighty souls everywhere in our everyday lives that for the most part go unnoticed; the love of doing simple things that strengthen others for a life time and the hope that comes when you are pulled to a funeral unawares by a powerful spirit that lives forever…
This is what a Good Friday means for me…
