Funeral Reminders

I've been to too many funerals lately. A month ago, a close friend buried his uncle. Two weeks ago, a family in my ministry buried their 11-year-old daughter. Then last week, my church laid to rest one of its patriarchs. Every one of those losses was painful. I watched all three families cry and grieve and sometimes struggle for breath. But as much as funerals are difficult and painful, they are also essential and good. Death is not good, but funerals can be. I never leave a funeral wishing I hadn't gone. Here's why.

Funerals remind us of our mortality. You wouldn't think we need reminding. After all, everyone knows they're going to die. But we often live like we've forgotten. Death no longer happens in our homes or even with our families. Death in our culture is often shrouded by beeping machines and IV tubes and waiting rooms and hospice care. We don't kill to eat and we don't witness death in our own species, so, most days, we go about our lives as if death weren't real.

I was encouraged when I saw that my friend burying his uncle brought his kids to the funeral. It's hard to talk to grade-schoolers about death. But then, it's hard to talk to 40-year-olds about death too. If we're going to live well, we're going to have to do hard things; we're going to have to face hard truths, like the truth that we are mortal.

At the funeral I went to last week, a friend of the deceased summarized his friend's character with three words: empathy, kindness and gratitude. I wondered what three words my friends will use to eulogize me someday. (Probably confusion, dereliction, and fetor, but that's another post.) That, I believe, is a good exercise — to imagine our eulogies, even to aspire to one. I wonder if we would all be better off if we held funerals for our living friends about once per decade, just as a sort-of report card on their lives. I like to think the eulogies would get better.

But funerals don't only force us to face death and encourage us to live well. They do something else.

Funerals remind us of our immortality. We need this second reminder more than the first. As much as we tend to forget our mortality, at least death is something we can see. We file past the open casket and cast our eyes upon the proof of our mortality. But we don't get to see eternity before we enter it. And oh, how we long for a glimpse! It tells us who we most truly are — not accidental collections of biological odds and ends, but players in a cosmic, eternal story; children of God. It tells us where we're going — not to the grave but to the sky, not to an end but to a beginning.

At last week's funeral, the pastor read C.S. Lewis — the last paragraph of the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia — which describes the experience of the Pevensie children after their death in a railway accident. (Yes, one of the most joyous and innocent stories in all of children's literature includes the death of children!)

And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

If you've ever gone to a Christian funeral and you thought it was all about mourning and despair, you missed the point. It's a send-off, a farewell party, a great big emotional flower-laden arrivederci; a space in our togetherness, as Khalil Gibran would say. Because we will see them again, in a story that keeps getting better and better.

We serve the God of life; therefore life is good, death is bad, and humanity hounded by mortality is not the way things are supposed to be. But when we gather for a home-going we are reminded of truths that outlast life and a God who outshines death. And any gathering that accomplishes that is a good thing.

Author's Note

At the risk of over-explaining, I wanted to add a quick note regarding "A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill". It was so much fun to write! And I dug in to invest much more time and energy in it than the other stories in my summer writing exercise. Even so, I realize that I made several factual mistakes. The entirety of my climbing knowledge has been acquired from one book and a few Discovery Channel episodes. So mistakes were bound to happen. For instance, I know now that Mt. Everest can't be seen from any vantage point in Kathmandu. Also, I'm sure that, despite much Google-ing, I screwed up some of the information about camps, seasons, and equipment used in climbing the word's highest peak.

Still, I hope the ride was enjoyable. I meant to create a yin-and-yang sort-of duality to the story — Aaron's life for Dawa's; Turner's life for Robert's. Every scene has a pair of some kind, and the final scene refers to a kind-of mysterious balance.

So if you're a world-class climber and you were offended by my ignorance, I apologize. The best way to keep that from happening again is to take me to Nepal with you.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 6

Aaron lunged forward and hooked his ice axe around both of Turner's ankles. The Kiwi fell hard and slid off the mountain.

For an instant, Aaron was surprised at how smoothly the plan had worked. As expected, both sherpas had taken ill, but Turner's clients had insisted that he take them to the top. Aaron stepped in to offer his sherpa who could care for the clients, leaving Aaron and Turner to climb together behind. The only other obstacle had been detaching Turner from the fixed ropes. Just as dawn was breaking they had taken a knee to catch their breath just above the South Summit. From there, the climb was steep but smooth up to the Hillary Step. The path followed just a few feet on the Chinese side of a ridge that marked the top of an upturned slab of snow-covered granite the size of a city block. The slope pointed sharply toward a glacier four thousand feet below. Aaron looked above and behind. Four climbers could be seen in each direction, but none were close enough to see what would happen next; none close enough to assign blame. Aaron unclipped his climbing partner as he stood from the breather, waited for him to turn to face the mountain, then, without really considering his actions, without remorse, like an athlete who had trained for this very move, lunged at Turner's legs.

That's where it should have ended. Aaron was just about to exhale, just about to breathe deep for the first time since his father's death, just about to see the sunrise over endless craggy peaks. But that didn't happen. It couldn't. The mountain was out of balance and had to right itself.

Aaron felt his right foot jerk away from the snow. Turner had slowed his slide enough to fling his unclipped rope toward Aaron. It wrapped around his leg and now both men were trying to arrest their slide.

Aaron came level with Turner. They were stopped but clinging desperately to ice axes with barely a half inch of purchase. Turner's red cap had fallen off and his face was a pink smudge of blood and snow. He hissed at Aaron.

"What the hell, Aaron? What are you doing?"

Aaron struggled to kick into the ice with his crampons and refused to answer. Turner reached for him and Aaron slapped him away.

"I'm killing you. Like you killed my dad."

Turner stopped struggling and stared at Aaron, breathing hard, his exposed face already succumbing to frostbite. "I—"

Aaron tried to kick at Turner but his axe slipped and sent him six more feet down the slope, his head even with Turner's feet. He saw turner slide a foot back along the snow and then bring it forward fast to kick at him. Aaron grabbed the foot, one of the crampons digging into his wrist through the down parka.

"Let go, you little prick!" Turner screamed. "I swear I'll kill you too!"

Aaron reached higher and caught Turner's harness, then his shoulder. The Kiwi was flailing and swinging his free hand, but couldn't land a punch. Aaron lay on top of him now, both of them breathing hard through frozen blood and spittle. Turner jerked his head back square against Aaron's nose. Aaron felt the warmth of blood running over his beard and down the neck of his parka. "Why'd you do it?" he whispered, his head right next to Turner's ear.

Turner coughed and choked. Aaron's weight was pulling the parka against his throat. "Your dad was an asshole. He was sticking his nose in my business."

"You mean because he didn't want you bringing fat cat retirees up here?"

Turner jerked his head back again. He missed this time, but the jerk started another slide. They went twenty more feet down the mountain before Turner's axe stopped them again. Aaron looked over his shoulder. Two hundred feet below, the granite slab ended and the free fall began. There was a truce, both men trying to catch their breath. Aaron looked to his left. Sunlight was just reaching the jagged horizon now. Purple peaks tickled the bottom of a pink sky. An airliner glided silently over the mountains to their west, below them. Turner said, "I'm sorry," and Aaron thought he heard him cry.

The wind was calmer this far down from the ridge. It was quiet for several long minutes except for their breathing and Turner's faint whimpers. Aaron closed his eyes and breathed deep. He could smell his blood and his sweat and the ropes, the crisp, bitter cold, the sunlight and snow and harness and a broken handle and a dutch oven and a cheap, tinny stereo. He laughed.

Turner must have interpreted that as forgiveness; he said, "Let's get off this slope."

Aaron thought of his father, and of Dawa Lob-sang. He smiled again and reached for Turner's axe. "Yeah, he said. Let's do that." And he lifted the axe from the ice.

Turner bumped and jostled under him as they slid, a jarring ride like the stiff old suspension in a mud-caked blue 4Runner. Aaron watched the landscape speed past and felt himself sliding over washboard dirt roads. Turner's screams were pitched high and thin. They warbled and soared like a guitar solo. They were all together: Aaron and Trevor, Dawa and Dad. Sliding and bouncing into eternity, across sun-speckled granite, through daybreak breezes, to another mountain ramble with Steely Dan.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 5

Aaron crouched over the tiny burner in his tent, aware that he was playing with fire. And poison. Poison had worked once, he thought. He hoped it would work again. This time, Aaron only wanted to cause illness, not death. It was a risky move — so many variables. If he diluted the risin too much, he would miss the opportunity. If he left it too strong, he could kill innocents. And there was no telling what effect the altitude would add.

He was at Camp Two, the busiest and most boring stop on the journey to the roof of the world, the place where dozens of climbers were leaving and arriving every day, ferrying gear up from lower camps, wrestling through thin sleep, willing their bodies to adjust to the air. Most of the time spent here was in tents, trying to sleep, melting snow, and waiting through the slow and unreliable process of acclimatization. It was evening. Through the unzipped vestibule of his tent, Aaron could see a blood red sun dropped into the slot of sky between the walls of the Western Cwm. Above the sun were hundreds of colors as varied as the tents in the little nylon village at Camp Two.

Of the twelve expeditions on the mountain, nine had climbers at Camp Two. Though high and cold and cramped, there was a festive atmosphere. Climbers shouting to one another from tent to tent. Jokes and hopes passed on the whistling wind. Aaron screwed the cap on the thermos of poisoned tea and set out to offer it to two men he had never met.

Trevor Turner had made four successful ascents of Everest, each time with at least two sherpas. While most climbers took only their most trusted aid to the top, Turner felt the need for additional support. That meant three men in one tent, which meant a larger tent, which meant a bullying campaign to find a wide enough spot to pitch it. Aaron forced himself to smile when he called out through the logo-rippled nylon.

"Room service for the Turner Trio?"

There was a chuckle and a grunt and then the tent's vestibule zipped open. Trevor Turner's gold-topped head erupted from the zipper. He looked both confused and pleased at what he saw. Aaron held out two mittened fists, one with a Thermos of tea, the other with a metal flask. "A drink for good luck?"

Aaron had to squat in the entrance of the tent, not able to crowd in past the vestibule. Turner greeted him with an energetic but furtive smile. Said it was good to see him on the mountain again. Aaron did his best to create a jovial reunion. He passed the Thermos to one of the sherpas, met his eyes, smiled, and gave a little bow with his shoulders. Then he unscrewed the cap on the flask and handed it to Turner, "Tea for the buddhists. Something stronger for us."

Aaron asked about Turner's clients — a middle-aged couple who were both here for the first time and had almost zero qualifications for their attempt save for the two that meant the most to Turner — their large bank account and their New Zealand citizenship. They were in the tent next door, probably asleep. Turner talked about the weather like he had planned it. They talked about rugby because Turner must always talk about rugby. They talked about Dawa Lob-sang and Prenesh Ghode. In less than fifteen minutes both the Thermos and the flask were empty and handed back to Aaron. He pocketed them and slipped on his mittens.

"Aaron," Turner said. "It was good of you to stop by. I should have reached out more since since your dad … I should have checked on you."

Aaron tried to smile. "I thought you and Dad had a falling out."

Turner shifted uneasily on his sleeping bag. "I guess we disagreed, but there's no use holding on to that now."

"About what?"

"It's not important."

"It might be to me. What did you disagree about?"

Turner shifted again and studied Aaron's face. He wasn't going to escape the question so he sighed and said, "Business. I climb for business. He climbed for love. He wanted to keep the mountain for people like himself."

"You mean climbers?"

"Everyone on the mountain is a climber, Aaron."

"The couple next door? They're climbers? He's a surgeon, right?"

"He's camping at sixty-one hundred meters; he's a climber."

"I see. And you and dad fought over that?"

"I'm sorry to say we fought on the morning he passed."

Aaron gathered his feet under him and reached for the zipper. He turned to the sherpas with a smile. "I hope that keeps you warm tonight," he said. "Big day starts in a few hours."

Both sherpas smiled, mute.

"He was a good man and a great climber," Turner said, his tone trying to rescue something.

"Yes, he was."