Having attended the visitation and funeral of my wife’s aunt Shirley last week, I have been in a contemplative mood, pondering some of life’s profound questions:
Why am I here?
Whom do I serve?
is it worse to do something that should not have been done or to leave undone something that should have been done?
And, last and no doubt least, are farting cows a legitimate environmental threat to the planet?
Seriously, thanks to the inspiration of “Saint Shirley,” as she was quickly canonized by Deacon Kenny Sayes, who presided at the visitation and gave the eulogy at the funeral Mass, I have been thinking about life and death. Two words that are paired together in a timeless kinship like good and evil, joy and sorrow, war and peace.
We live, knowing we must die. But the problem comes when we live as if life is all there is. That’s when, without the anchors of faith, hope and love, life goes off the rails.
Based on the testimonies given by a handful of her relatives at the visitation, Aunt Shirley, in answer to “why am I here?”, would likely have said she was here to know, love and serve God, and love unconditionally her husband of 71 years, Nap Brouillette, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (76 in all, including spouses). The last survivor in a line of 12 Mathews siblings, Shirley also wanted to make sure she cared for the sick in her flock and that any and all who darkened her door were given plenty to eat by what she cooked or baked or chilled or boiled or fried.
In contemplating the same question, I am reminded of a quote by John Henry Newman, an influential churchman in England and man of letters of the 19th century, who later became a cardinal, and eventually a saint, in the Roman Catholic Church.
“God has created me to do Him some definite service,” Newman wrote. “He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.”
And that work is all the better, the saints tell us, when that work is hard, when it is unselfish or even undeserved.
Regarding the question about if it is worse to do something that shouldn’t be done or not do something that should be done, I wonder about both a curse and a blessing in my life: weed eating. This, for me, is hard work; yet, somehow, I hate it and enjoy it at the same time. Like the time earlier this football season when I used the chore to release anger and frustration during a break from a maddening LSU football game.
The best part about this chore is seeing how much better the yard is afterwards than it was. There is something satisfying about making something better or making someone feel better or understand better or move around better.
Strolling through the cemetery grounds – yes, at an internment ceremony but also when nobody else is around – is a good thing. There is a peace amidst the headstones and a sense of kinship and even a history lesson of a community. The names and dates alone tell stories, especially when the dates reveal lives ended in just days or weeks or months or even a mere few decades.
Regardless of our histories, those of us among the living, while ambling amidst the tombs, can be pierced by a gentle breeze and fluttering leaves. Time, we profoundly realize, marches on, and we should join in the march to do good, to make things better.
One of Louisiana’s great writers, New Roads native Ernest J. Gaines, in “A Lesson Before Dying,” tells of a young Black man named Jefferson wrongly accused of murder and the college-educated teacher who helps him realize his dignity.
“And that’s all we are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood,” Gaines wrote. “Until we – each of us, individually – decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.”