Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes...

Tomorrow morning is my mother's interment. It's going to be a short, to-the-point ritual, just my pastor and me at the cemetery.

I'm not feeling sad. I'm feeling satisfied; that this is the task that needs to be done to end the beginning of my bereavement. In the book Practicing Resurrection (did I mention that I really love this book?), author Nora Gallagher quotes someone, in talking about grief, citing a quote by Dr. Seuss: "When the drops stop dropping, the storm starts stopping." I feel like the drops have started stopping.

And -- ain't it cool -- tomorrow also happens to be Ascension Day. We didn't plan it this way; this is simply the first day my pastor and I could get together and do this. I talked to him today, and when I mentioned that there was a pause at the end of the line, and then he remarked, "There are no coincidences."

Here's an excerpt of the Epistle reading for tomorrow, from the Letter to the Ephesians:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

I think it's maybe the eyes of the heart, enlightened by the grace of God, that can stand in a rainy cemetery saying goodbye to a loved one and see, not the end, but merely the end of the beginning.