I first noticed them a couple months ago on my early morning walk around the perimeter of the nearby cemetery. One of the two women carried a large loaf of a homemade sweet bread and waited as the driver of a small front end loader approached, front bucket bobbing in a rhymthic greeting. The exchange seemed familiar between them and I kept walking, not wishing to intrude.
The next Tuesday they were there again, plastic tablecloth spread on the still dew covered grass near a newer gravesite. A simple breakfast of fresh fruit and yogurt lay at their feet, the comfortable comraderie between them also visible. I kept walking, beginning to speculate on the loss that brought them there together again. Had a mother been buried? Did her daughter and her sister decide to keep a routine of Tuesday morning breakfasts in remembrance? Was it their regular visit before the passing of their loved one?
Soon fresh sod was laid atop the grave giving a new softness to cushion the ladies' time of reminscence. A cell phone conversation overheard announced to another friend the improvement and the joy it brought. However, the improvement made the nearby grass look forlorn and over the next weeks it was sprayed and eventually replaced with a healthy lawn to match the improvement over the most recent resting place.
Like clockwork, the ladies appeared early every Tuesday morning. Always lingering over a small meal shared, sometimes joined by others: another male friend/relative one morning, salesmen from the cemetery on others.
Last Tuesday's morning's cooler temperatures had me finding more things to do outside at home but I didn't want to break my morning habit. Reluctantly leaving chores behind, I donned sunglasses as I walked toward the eastern sky and the bright morning sunlight. An hour later than usual, I was surprised to see the now familiar car and the two women still in their usual spot. "Oh, that's right. It's Tuesday," I thought to myself as I smiled.
The women both rose and brushed off as I approached and the younger woman, tablecloth in hand, greeted me warmly, "Good morning!" Delighted that they had initiated a conversation, I told them how I had been wondering about their Tuesday morning ritual and the loss that had them here on a regular basis. They easily shared their bereavement of husband and father before Christmas. "He died on the day of our 57th wedding anniversary, " his widow shared. Tears spilled unconsciously as they remembered out loud with me, not the crying that make your eyes red and swollen but tears that followed a familiar path, spilling like the overflow of a river that could no longer contain the surge of an abundance of rain.
Their only child, a daughter, began bringing her mother every Tuesday to visit. Tuesdays start very early for them as they drive from the Disney area where they live and then stop for fresh flowers in the Winter Park Village before their early arrival at Glenn Haven. Although great loss started their weekly pilgrimages, they have made new friends and acquaintances along the way because of it. They are known by the clerks who sell them flowers. All the staff, office and groundskeeping, of the cemetery recognize and greet them. Then there are the other regulars to the cemetery, some with names you'd recognize, who go from being familiar strangers to having a first name. All of them together are playing a part in the ladies' processing of grief and slowly moving into new routines and places.
A lot about their Tuesdays reminds me of our Sundays.
My husband and I gather every week to worship at a church plant that meets in our neighborhood YMCA. Weekly we may join others who remember Him and His death on the cross in sharing a piece of bread dipped in grape juice. Jesus' last meal with His dearest friends included similar elements and He commanded them to repeat this in remembrance of Him. Sometimes tears flow easily as such an extravagant love is dwelled upon. Sometimes the tears flow easily in repentance at disappointing such a love and at the extravagance of the grace to start again clean, still loved, still invited to come, still included in the remembering.
Great loss started us on these weekly pilgrimages, we have made new friends and acquaintances long the way because of it. We are known, recognized, greeted because we gather there. Some of the regulars go from being familiar strangers to having a first name. All of them together are playing a part as we process what it means to follow Jesus, helping us slowly move into new routines and places where knowing Him and being known help us move forward in faith.
Out of loss comes life, if you choose to regularly remember.
