Life and Death in the Country

When we drove out of the Auld Kirk cemetery after the short ceremony, I rhetorically quipped, "What's not to like about living in the country - the cemetery is 5 minutes away and the golf club is 10 minutes away!" We continued our drive on this sultry summer day to the golf club where the six of us rallied for lunch along the Mississippi River.  It was a tight group but a poignant gathering - three faces going back together over many years, three others more newly connected but equally important. The old and the new each modified by change, continuing together into the future. For the time being we bore in upon the present and the past.

The fluidity of the group was reflected in our buoyant conversation, topics jumping willy-nilly from one to another, always embracing a point of importance, relevance or pertinent recollection. The time sped by, each of us counting the significance of the moments as they ticked by. We laughed at our natural declension and rejoiced in our sometimes preposterous past. There was always the shiver of thought about the future but the only comments were directed to the butterflies and the fawn that strode through the garden.

Like the habit of adjusting one's watch, I afterwards drove into the city to gas up and wash the car, to reset my banausic routine to its apple pie order. While savouring the cleanliness and magical summer sky I realigned myself from the social disturbances of the day. The mystical insinuations of critical observations about life and death are wearing. The proclamations of the United Church clergy at the graveside sparked long forgotten language and spiritual spheres.