More Than Just Moving: Finding Sacred Moments in Transition
“Hey, are you free right now? Want to help me bury a body?”
I was used to this kind of thing from my friend. “You know I am. Tell me more.”
“Kind of a sad situation. I was helping to clean out a home and came across a box of ashes. I asked the owner of the property if they would like to keep them, but they declined. It felt wrong to toss them, so I’ve got them in the back seat of my car right now.”
On its surface, my friend’s job is to help older adults downsize, move, or plan for a future of aging in place. In reality he is a companion to those who, often forced by tumult of transition, must face themselves: they must grieve the loss of autonomy, of friends, of youth; they must consider the narrative of their lives, infused into the possessions they have collected, and come to terms with the person they have become. A reevaluation is necessary, and perhaps decades overdue, through which wounds and hopes and fears and loves are reopened to the air and sun. On the other side of such a transition? By God’s love - and perhaps with the companionship of a friend - peace and hope.
I climbed in the car, having grabbed a bag on my way out the door. We drove to a trailhead in Northern Colorado and hiked a ways in. When we met a fork in the road, looked down the left, then the right - then trudged straight up the steep middle through the thorns and rocks. We reached a jagged tree near the hill’s crest which seemed cleaved in two: half a gnarling, withered arm holding up the steel sky, half a lady in silk kneeling to brush the heather.
“Perfect”, he said and removed a rock at the base of the tree. He carefully unwrapped the ashes from his backpack and set them deep in the newly formed hole, then replaced the stone. I removed a Book of Common Prayer from my knapsack.
We stood motionless, facing the stone, the mountains peeling away before us. I read aloud the Prayer for the Dead, the wind stealing some of the words.
“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your
servant... Receive him into the arms of your mercy,
into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the
glorious company of the saints in light...
May his soul and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”
We bowed our heads. We hiked down. We went back to work. I now keep a copy of this prayer in my pocket at all times, just in case.