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Good morning

Like most clergy I preside on a fairly frequent basis at the funerals of people I have never even met. Visiting their next of kin I hear stories of their loved one’s lives with the hope of painting a picture of them in their eulogy. Sometimes there is much to say, from childhood, to working life, stories of love and labour. But just occasionally I visit a family grieving for whom the opposite is true. These are the most difficult visits of all. My questions are met with shrugs and the prospect of the service in church being significantly filled with very long reflective silences becomes a real possibility.

But often all is not as sad as it seems, sometimes the reason there is little to say is simply because those sharing the stories have only known the deceased for a short part of their life and not the whole of it. This is most often the case when someone has lived to a very old age and all their peers have long since died. Those doing the remembering were not there when the person started school, or left home or fell in love. All they know of them is them is their older years.  Recently I did a funeral for a lady of the grand old age of 104, there was no one around from her salad days and so we had to rely on stitching together what we could from photographs and the letters and diaries she had left as well the memories of her from recent years. Behind the wrinkles and the creases of many people lie tales of youth and adventure the rest of might only dream of.

God of the young and the old, help us to value the stories of others’ lives, to see beyond the physical age of the body to the eternal youth of the soul and to see each person as a reflection of your divinity, whatever their age.
Amen