Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
I saw a corpse for the first time tonight since I was a little kid.
We were at Vigil, and I was in line for confession when the church phone rang, and Fr. Peters wife, Hellen, ran into the back room to answer it. Maybe a minute later she came out and went over to the confessionary and interrupted the confession that was going on. This is something I've never seen before, so I knew it had to be big. A few moments later, another woman at the church, whose daughter is getting married tomorrow, came over and told me that our parishoner and reader, James, had just died at home, and that Matushka (the Russian Orthodox word for the priests wife) was going over to their house immediately.
After I confessed the service went on and ended in the usual way, and Fr. Peter said that anyone who wanted to come with him to the house of the deceased was most certianly welcome because they were going to do the service for the dead.
So I followed him in my car. I walked right past the body on the ground without even realizing it, I had thought he must be upstairs, but when Justin and I went into the basement to get something to put underneath the body to protect the carpet, I realized as we came back up the stairs, that he was lying in the living room wrapped in a white sheet and I just hadn't seen him.
I held the blanked while Matushka Hellen and a few others lifted up the corpse and then one of them slid it under him. When I was a young boy, we were in our family van and we drove past a vehicle/bicycle accadent, and there was a yong man lying in the road with a huge pool of blood around his head, it didn't affect me at all. But, this time, standing in the presence of a freshly dead corpse, the husband of a woman I know from church, it was the closest I'd ever been to death.
Matushka told me as we were leaving that it was best that my first encounter with death be something like this, rather than with a member of my own family, because then at least the experience of having to deal with the body, etc... would not be brand new in and of itself, along with the grief.
The body didn't smell very much, only just a little bit, or maybe it was just the ambient odor of the house, I've no idea really, but standing right next to the body while Fr. Peter read the prayers and we all sang the responses, it was hard to ignore it, even though it was very slight.
Twenty-Four and a half years. That's how long I made it without ever even having seen a funeral. It shuts you up, and it makes you listen.
...And to think, in eighteen hours, I'll be at a wedding.
Lay thy servant to rest in evernal peace and joy, Father of All.
In Nomine Patris, Et Fili, Et Spiritus Sancte. Amen.
We were at Vigil, and I was in line for confession when the church phone rang, and Fr. Peters wife, Hellen, ran into the back room to answer it. Maybe a minute later she came out and went over to the confessionary and interrupted the confession that was going on. This is something I've never seen before, so I knew it had to be big. A few moments later, another woman at the church, whose daughter is getting married tomorrow, came over and told me that our parishoner and reader, James, had just died at home, and that Matushka (the Russian Orthodox word for the priests wife) was going over to their house immediately.
After I confessed the service went on and ended in the usual way, and Fr. Peter said that anyone who wanted to come with him to the house of the deceased was most certianly welcome because they were going to do the service for the dead.
So I followed him in my car. I walked right past the body on the ground without even realizing it, I had thought he must be upstairs, but when Justin and I went into the basement to get something to put underneath the body to protect the carpet, I realized as we came back up the stairs, that he was lying in the living room wrapped in a white sheet and I just hadn't seen him.
I held the blanked while Matushka Hellen and a few others lifted up the corpse and then one of them slid it under him. When I was a young boy, we were in our family van and we drove past a vehicle/bicycle accadent, and there was a yong man lying in the road with a huge pool of blood around his head, it didn't affect me at all. But, this time, standing in the presence of a freshly dead corpse, the husband of a woman I know from church, it was the closest I'd ever been to death.
Matushka told me as we were leaving that it was best that my first encounter with death be something like this, rather than with a member of my own family, because then at least the experience of having to deal with the body, etc... would not be brand new in and of itself, along with the grief.
The body didn't smell very much, only just a little bit, or maybe it was just the ambient odor of the house, I've no idea really, but standing right next to the body while Fr. Peter read the prayers and we all sang the responses, it was hard to ignore it, even though it was very slight.
Twenty-Four and a half years. That's how long I made it without ever even having seen a funeral. It shuts you up, and it makes you listen.
...And to think, in eighteen hours, I'll be at a wedding.
Lay thy servant to rest in evernal peace and joy, Father of All.
In Nomine Patris, Et Fili, Et Spiritus Sancte. Amen.
posted by Alexios at 6:40 PM
4 Comments:
"Sancti", sir, would be the correct spelling.
I haven't visited in a while, how've ya been?
:)
Quite well, thank you. Sorry bout the typo.
"Give rest, O Lord, to the soul of Thy servant who hath fallen asleep."
refrain from the Orthodox funeral service
Amen.
If my memory serves correctly; when our Parish (St. Silouan's in Walla Walla, WA) moved into its current "home," we moved in on a Sunday and had our first funeral on Tuesday of that same week.
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