Sine Nomine

I’m beginning to really not like All Saints’ Sunday. I know it’s supposed to be a celebration, but it’ll be two years in a row now I’ll be praying the name of someone close to me that died in the previous twelve months, and I’ll be crying. Not the sad, watery eyed tears of empathy, but the gut-wrenching, unable to speak through cries that can only come from a hole in your heart. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Actually, in 2006, the last of my uncles died. We weren’t particularly close, but he and my mom loved each other and managed to exchange phone calls occasionally, especially near their birthdays, which were only a day or two apart. On All Saints’ Day that year, my daughter and I had gone to visit my sister at her church. They had a very cool celebration, since they were meeting in a church with a belfry and a real bell. So at the beginning of the service, they passed around a clipboard and asked the assembly to write down the names of folks who had died that year. At the appointed time, they tolled the bell as each name was read from the clipboard one by one. But both my sister and I forgot to add my uncle’s name to the list.

Last year, it was Ed. His death in July was like a sucker punch. He was my parents’ age, but it was hard to consider him as their peer. He and his wife Dottie were much more physically active than my folks, and they traveled extensively, sometimes flying stand-by. My folks hadn’t traveled by any mode recently, due to various health issues and annoyances. Ed’s death reminded me that my own parents could die at any moment, but more than that, Ed was my friend and colleague. We served on the team charged with stewardship of our church’s financial resources and we shared the seriousness of that responsibility. We also shared a sometimes wicked sense of humor, and those years serving together were a priceless gift for me. At his memorial, we sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in honor of his love for the San Diego Padres. Sometime later the mailbox slot in the church office was changed, his name removed and the next financial secretary’s name put in its place. The first time I saw it, I burst out crying. Then, hearing his name on All Saints’ Sunday just started the tears all over again.

About six weeks later, in the middle of December, my mom died. She had been ill and hospitalized, but seemed to be on the road to recovery. When my dad called to say she was being rushed to the ER from the skilled nursing facility where she’d been for only a few days, it was a shock. By that evening, she was gone.

So here we are, almost eleven months later, on the eve of another All Saints’ Day. Another candle, another name, more tears. The celebration is out of my reach again this year.