Death Comes for Us All

Death has been on my mind increasingly of late, and not merely because we have just come through the intense commemoration of Christ's death in the Easter Triduum.  That mystery, however, casts its shadow upon every experience of death and every pondering thereof.  For where our Lord has conquered death by His death there must also be life.

The reality of death never affected me much as a child.  Even now I can count on one hand the times that death has touched me closely, butchery of chickens and viewing of murder mystery shows notwithstanding.

I think of a priest I met who shared with us words his mother had repeated to him about how where there is death there will come life.  That priest knew a couple who received a newborn boy after they had longed eagerly for a child they had been unable to conceive on their own and had prayed through the intercession of the priest's mother.  Their new child was born on the same day that the priest's mother had died.  Where there was death there came life.

I think of tulips planted in rocks beside the ocean with their roots sheltered by soil carefully patted around them.  As their bright colors caught my gaze, I found my heart reflecting on death contrasting with their bright and vibrant life, for I thought perhaps the tulips stood as testimony to some lost love.

Before the mystery of death I have no words, writer as I am.  Still, writer as I am, I must strive to put words where only silence can adequately respond.  I must speak out from my heart what I know in its quiet beating, even though in the end I will say nothing of what I know with all my many words, but speak only of all that surrounds it, of all the little petty details that seem to mean nothing.

Perhaps it is best to rely upon poetry whose imagery speaks what prose cannot.  Here a little piece from G.K. Chesterton:

The Skeleton

Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No; I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully.