In my short
lifetime, I've been to far too many
funerals. But I don't want to get into that, into any of that
pain. I just want to
share a simple experience I had at a funeral for a friend's mother several months ago.
There was a baby at the funeral. A beautiful, healthy, happy 18-month-old, completely oblivious to the proceedings. Throughout the service, and the eulogy, and the readings from Scripture, he was gurgling and singing, joyfully, in his own private language, that baby-speech that is so difficult to understand if you are not the kind of person who discovers something new every single day.
Those of us who long ago stopped looking that deep couldn't help ourselves. The second we heard that unabashed laughter, we started grinning like fools. The baby put everything in perspective. Right there in the same holy space we had both life and death. For a moment everything was simple. For a moment we just cherished what we had lost and rejoiced in what we had. It was perfect. And that's why there should be a baby at every funeral.
Note: there should be babies to sing and laugh and play and cry at funerals for babies who have passed on, too. At every funeral.