Grand Designs
The Patterns We Dismiss Too Quickly Are There To Signal A Time To Reassess What's Important
The synchronicities that God has architected for us, what does the discovery of the pattern mean? When a woman who shares her birthday with her mother, is laid to rest in the cemetery where her mother is interred you see a cycle. When you find out that both great ladies lived until 89, you are drawn further into their story.
It’s these intricacies that you can’t help but notice. It’s the clue that something is at work. The clues and indirect indication of threads you miss in your daily life.
My family attended a memorial and interment ceremony for the mother of a long time friend of ours, we home schooled our children together. Our friend’s mother was 89, and was laid to rest in the family cemetery with her husband who had passed a few decades ago. She was part of a family with roots in the region, as she maintained her husband’s farmhouse that had been in his family since the 1830s.
We were struck with the fact that a family had a private cemetery. It was a beautifully wooded sanctuary, and while situated next to a major road, the sound of the cars grew less obtrusive as we gathered in the green grove with the headstones. Generations have been laid to rest here. The service began when a young lady started playing How Great Thou Art on a violin. And whether it was from the knowledge of how old this cemetery was, or the fact that this family had been here when the suburb wasn’t even a remote dream of the future, it felt like a setting where settlers would have gathered. The only music for a service, a simple violin. It also harkened to the times when this family would host talent shows and our home schooling circle of friends would set aside the devices, TVs and spend time together entertaining one another the old fashioned way. Home spun fun I used to call it. Today those memories took on a different dimension.
It turned out that our friend’s mother, in her role as a nurse, had helped deliver the parents of the young violinist, and that prompted her to contact my friend’s family so she could take part in the ceremony. Patterns, connections and cycles of life. You don’t realize how vital and how hidden they are until someone passes.
As the violin played on, the sounds of the busy road grew more remote as we heard the stories in honor of the deceased. Warm, joyful stories, shared with laughter.
While there was sorrow, there was also joy in the tearful eyes of the children, grandchildren and friends as they recalled the inspiration that our friend’s mother was to them. Her habits that may have annoyed them now had a gentler meaning when told with a smile. Those jokes and stories celebrated her memory in this little haven, a cemetery acting as a reminder of a different type which lays by a busy suburban road.
The memorial ended with each grandchild taking part in the placing of the soil. Our friend’s brother, the oldest in the family, had dug the grave like many of his ancestors had done. Whether that was a tradition I’m not sure, but I realized that not many do dig the graves for their own parents. Or at least this was the first time that I had heard of that. One of the grandchildren made the pine box that housed their grandmother’s ashes. Another tradition that this family practiced was that each grandchild would place soil on the coffin at the close. Our friend’s brother would carry out the final tradition and finish the burial to join us at the reception.
Sometimes we can become consumed with the folly of others, and it crowds out what we have to do for ourselves, and it distracts us from the love that we have to still nurture each day. I know some who are able to block out the awful things in the world, and I even them because I really struggle with that. But perhaps that is one of the reasons why when someone passes there’s a catalyst to other things that we should recognize, take stock of in order to recalibrate our own lives.
I also admire what we were privileged to participate in, as I know from direct experience the bitter divides that can cut family members off from one another. It’s a hard thing to reconcile how loyalty to family members requires tough choices when other family members are destructive to your familial bonds. To do the right thing for your immediate family that requires a tough choice between family members shouldn’t be all that difficult make, but it doesn’t remove the sting and bitterness that remain after others turn against one another. Perhaps the traditions we witnessed helped make the bonds for our friend’s family stronger. I don’t know absolutely, but I hope that whatever the source, the strong ties we saw remain.
An Interesting Series of Irony
The reception was held at the family farmhouse, it’s been the hub since the 1830s. It’s the last remnant of the life that this family has been blessed to lead. The original structure has a series of editions, different eras of construction added to the back, to walk from the front to the back of the house is to travel in time. Beyond are several sheds, even one with a chimney and a small barn filled with rusty tractor parts, and other equipment that looked like it had moved in decades.
I emphasized the busy road next to the cemetery earlier because at this home, the road plays into the story of our friend’s mother. Her husband had passed in the 80s, and after his death, the region embarked on road construction projects. Eminent domain was exercised and this transformed the region. The Detroit region has the “Mile Roads”, major thoroughfares two to three lanes in one direction. This farm was near one of those mile roads that used to be a dirt road when our friend’s mother married. No longer.
Eminent domain was invoked in the late 80s to purchase the farm property and a major thoroughfare runs within 20 yards of the property. The noise is staggering. The road is hidden from the homestead as the property is lined with lush foliage and brush, it’s a haven nestled away to the extent that you would miss it like we did when driving by. Our friend’s mother fought tooth and nail to stop the road construction, and managed to convince the state to designate the property as a historical building. But despite the sign displayed out front, the road was put through and she had to sell a piece of her deceased husband’s legacy. So while I had considered the intrusion of the noise during the service at the beautiful family cemetery a bit of a distraction, what our friend’s mother went through with her lovely home was really tragic. Despite her defeat, she remained. Her battle had become a real obsession, and you can only admire the determination she had to stay despite progress roaring by in the cars on a daily basis. I can’t imagine staying - I grew up in the Catskill mountains and I consider where we live today to be loud and intrusive. The older I get, the more it bothers as it makes my home in New York seem more remote. I try to fathom what it would be like to see your own land carved up for the greater good and fall asleep at night to the sound of speeding cars 20 yards from my home.
We learned later from other family members that this was not the first time that the family holdings had been impacted adversely. During the Great Depression, the family had fallen behind on taxes, and despite selling parcels they lost ownership of the farm completely. They fought to regain the property, but by the time they were able to repurchase, large portions had been sold off. Yet they returned. Some things you can’t relent, you have to return.
And a final irony here is that this farm land is now part of a suburb called Farmington Hills. It’s still very beautiful, but progress has carved away much of what it was originally. And as I said, it’s hard to imagine the region as mere dirt roads. Since I moved to the Detroit region in 1991, most of the change had already taken place, and if not for our family friends, we would not have this glimpse of their legacy.
And their blessings. Despite the march of progress destructively impacting my friend’s mother and her loved ones, this family still possesses something that many never have.
Who Wants To Live Forever?
Recently a friend posed the question “Would you really want to live forever?”.
No I wouldn’t. For one, there is His promise of something beyond this life. And in some sense our lives are up to His plan, and that means there is an ending to what we ourselves experience here. But for those who remain, they experience something of our life that we leave to them. Without a passing of a loved one and the need to cherish things of value before a person departs our world, we wouldn’t celebrate that life, take stock of what was passed on to us.
We are urged to give our lives for the greater good but isn’t that just for the short time we spend here, and doesn’t that ignore other things that may be in store for us when we look above and not around?
