I've been meaning to write something about the love that enveloped us at baby George's funeral Mass on May 27, 2009. My Dad and his wife flew out to be with us and brought my younger sister along as surprise consolation for me. What a blessing.
Our parish is a mission church on a First Nations reserve and we've gone there since 2000. We have always felt so welcome going there and the parish community has welcomed us with open arms. The choir members came to our baby's service and their beautiful singing and musical accompaniment was their gift to our family.
The church was nearly full. So many friends from the parish were there to celebrate George's life and several families from our children's school came as well. It was overwhelming how kind our church family was to take time on a weekday to come and be there - just be there - to support us in our sorrow.
Our priest was away and Fr. Tom from another parish officiated the Mass. He is from a family of 11 children and shared with our children how he himself lost a sibling and how his family always speaks of their special loved one in heaven. We had a bagpiper to pipe baby out of the church and to the hearse with the Highland Cradle Song and a medley of other hymns.
A bunch of ladies, headed by one amazingly loving woman, hosted a reception for after the Mass. Four elders from the Squamish Nation honoured us with a traditional blanket ceremony. These lovely women, who have always shown me such kindness, had a Hudson's Bay blanket with a red and cream coloured Squamish design. They each held a corner of the blanket and walked around the reception singing the Marian paddle song the Oblate priests had written with their ancestors. It was beautiful. They sang the hymn first in their language and then in English.
As they walked around singing the beautiful song about Mary, they carried the blanket for people to "shake hands" with us - dropping in cards and donations if they wished towards funeral costs. They then folded up the blanket and one Auntie, the oldest elder in the nation now, spoke of her stillborn son and how she will pray for her boy and George and all babies in heaven. Then another Auntie, who has been so dear to us, spoke of her stillborn twins and how they are angels in heaven and she shares our grief.
They then came to Philip and me and presented us with the blanket to soak up our tears in the weeks ahead. They said we're to wrap ourselves in it when we need to remember the comfort and love of all the people who gathered at the funeral. We came home and put the blanket on our bed, so touched by this meaningful tradition. We slept under it for many nights, until it grew too warm with summer approaching. I do wrap myself in it when I feel sad and I do feel so loved.
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2 comments:
Wow. Sounds like a really beautiful ceremony, Karen. You have a lot of neat people in your life. I love the idea of the blanket. I too have a blanket that I use to soak up my tears. It's the blanket tht Ella was wrapped in right after she was born. I sleep with it every night. The poor blanket is now all tattered and worn, but I don't care. I would rather use it for comfort as long as I can than preserve it in a plastic bag untouched. Thanks for sharing this post with me.
A close friend gave me a beautiful purple shawl after the loss of our daughter Naia. Since she lived in a town a couple of hours away, this shawl became something I wore anytime I needed to wear my grief and at the same time, feel comforted. It has now been almost 4 years since our daughter Naia Ruby was born still (after a possible cord accident during the late stages of labour), and the raw intensity of my grief has subsided greatly (helped in large part by the subsequent birth of my daughter a year and a half later) ...but still grabs me from time to time. At a recent blessing way that I helped to organize for a friend, I wore the scarf once again, and shared that I hoped Naia's story would serve as a reminder of the way that birth brings us in close contact with death (or at least the possibility of death), and that it is my hope that the mere remembrance of this proximity would bring an even greater awareness of the sheer joy and miracle of babies that are born healthy and alive.
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