15/4
Somewhere, theres a coffin with my name on it
One of the enormous and undeserved privileges I have is to offer eucharist and prayers at a funeral. Sometimes I haven’t known the person for all that long and certainly never as Iong as I would have liked. Sometimes a relationship has been established and the occasion becomes particularly poignant and piercing.
Towards the end of the service I honour the departed with incense and holy water. Frequently the name plaque on top of the coffin stares sombrely back at me. There it is for me to see and there is no getting around it. I can’t somehow wish it away.
Once upon a time it occurred to me that there will be a funeral with a coffin and there on the lid of this coffin will be a name plaque. On that name plaque in lovely cursive writing will be my name. David Robert Oulton. This was quite an unnerving and disquieting and confronting truth to grapple with. I knew it to be true, but I didn’t want it to be true.
This coffin probably hasn’t been made yet. I’m feeling pretty perky and I managed to shuffle around lovely lake Hamilton this morning so hopefully the engraver need not double-check how to spell my surname just yet.
But there will come a day. Promise.
As we hurtle into the crazy events of supper, denial, betrayal and an empty tomb, it is comforting to know that someone else has already blazed a trail before me and will be there to greet me when I slip through into the next dimension and beyond.
I am not alone. We all must do this. Somewhere there’s a coffin with a lid with your name on it. It’s not a matter of if… it’s only a matter of… when.