One of the challenging things about being a minister who does weddings and funerals is that sometimes the couple or the family picks a reading for the service that they are wildly enthusiastic about – “it’s perfect!”, they say - but you, the minister, don’t really like it.

Well, maybe not that you don’t like it, but that you aren’t sure you agree with its message.  See, we ministers, no matter what the denomination, tend to be, well, preachy.  We tend to have developed theories about life and death and marriage that we are very comfortable sharing with large groups of people.  And when the reading that a couple or a family picks for a wedding or a memorial service doesn’t match up with the meaning that that particular minister wants to bring, well, it’s a little challenging.

And an example of this, for me, involves a poem about death that is commonly used in Unitarian Universalist memorial services, maybe even at one that you have attended.  Let me read it to you now.  It was written by Mary Elizabeth Frye. 

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I did not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

It’s certainly a beautifully written poem and has some lovely images, but I always get stopped short by the last line, even though I admire the cadence of it:  “Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there, I did not die.”

I guess my main objection to it is that the poem is read to a group of people who have literally come together with the intention of remembering and sharing the sadness of losing someone to death.  Someone really did die, and those who knew him or her are really sad.  Is it helpful to say the opposite of what has actually happened? 

How do the more literally minded among us take these words?  It is already hard enough in this culture, when death is hidden and considered to be unusual and tragic, to get folks to understand that death is common and part of the natural rhythm of life.  In my opinion, to stand before a congregation that is mourning a loss and tell them “do not cry” and “I did not die” just seems counterproductive to the overall point of the funeral service, which is to take time to sit with a painful reality and let it absorb.  At memorial services, we remember, we grieve, we are together in our sorrow, and we allow ourselves to start down the healing path towards which healthy grieving naturally heads.  That’s the point of it.

In my opinion, my bossy preacher opinion, the first thing one needs to hear in a memorial service is affirmation that someone has died, and that it is a sad thing, and we are here together in that sadness, and, for goodness’ sake, go ahead and cry.  The human story itself is a tale of what we do when faced with the knowledge of our mortality, our own lack of control over the most important aspects of our existences. 

Memorial services are a time to celebrate the fact that we humans live and love and intertwine our lives in the face of enormous uncertainty.  If we’re honest about what we’re feeling in these times of loss, we’re going to be much better off in the long run.

That all said…the poem does make, or imply, an interesting point.  And it’s a better time to consider this alternative point at a place like our annual Day of the Dead service, rather than when we are faced with our own painful and immediate losses, because at those times our thoughts want to rest with the person we lost, who was so important to us.

The interesting point that the poem makes, perhaps inartfully by the end, is this:  There are many different ways for a person to live, even when they are not physically alive any more. 

Yes, let’s take the time to mourn when we are missing the physical, day-to-day existence of someone.  But let’s also think about the many ways in which we impact the world, even when our physical selves aren’t around to do it personally.

For example:

If you have lost a blood relative of yours, if someone you are related to dies, then you – YOU - are continuing, in a small way, to live that person’s life.  That relative’s genes continue to live, every day, inside of you.  It is the most basic of ways to live on after death, and you don’t even need poetic “I am the wings that fly” mumbo-jumbo to describe it. 

My father died nine years ago last Friday.  But right now, nine years later, you are looking at his skin color, and you are seeing the proof of the recessive gene he carried that led to my hair color, and you would also be looking at the gap in his front teeth if it weren’t for the miracle of orthodontia.  In a very real way, there is a part of my father that didn’t die, because you are looking at it right now, and I live in it every day. 

And more than that.  My father also, not through his genes but through his influence in my life, taught me to be funny, and taught me to be practical, and taught me to be caring, and he taught me to use the first two qualities in the service of the last one.  If you have seen any of those things in me in the course of our two and a half year relationship, then you have, in a small way, met my dad. 

And that’s true for all of us who have relationships with other people.  We influence them, sometimes beyond measure, and they influence us, and even when we die, that influence lives on. 

There is an old expression that says if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it can set off a tornado in Texas.  Or vice versa.  And I think that originally this was a meterological point, meant to be taken literally – small changes in the atmosphere like the flap of a butterfly’s wings have an influence all around the world. 

But the idea behind that quote took flight, so to speak, and is used oftentimes to describe what we Unitarian Universalists would call the interdependent web.  What you do makes a difference in my life.  Even something small can change the world in ways we wouldn’t expect.

And so it makes sense that if you spend time interacting with and loving someone, talking with them and having fun with them and learning with them and from them, then a part of them ends up inside of you in a way that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.  And so, when your friend dies, they really do live on, in a certain way, inside of your life.

So maybe I’ve been a little too hard on our poem this morning.  Maybe among the countless ways in which we exist after we die, there are indeed a thousand winds, and glints on snow.  Maybe there are rain and birds and stars.  Maybe the ways in which we live on are not only interpersonal.  Maybe they are, in fact, cosmic.  I certainly hope so.

While we ponder all of that, what do we do to honor the role that our dead loved ones played in our lives?  What do we do to think about and pay tribute to those who meant so much to us, who really have died and about whom we really are sad?

We remember them.

We take opportunities like this day, and countless other ways as varied as the snowflakes, to remember our dead.  We remember them for who they were and what they meant to us.  We remember them for their uniqueness and for our commonality.  We remember.  We remember.