thanks­giv­ing

Some days I wake up with a sort of rea­son­less melan­choly.  I think we all do.

For me, it is often the let­down from an espe­cial­ly won­der­ful time, as we have had in the last sev­er­al weeks.  John’s mom has been here for a sim­ply spec­tac­u­lar vis­it; we’ve had a sump­tu­ous and extrav­a­gant Thanks­giv­ing din­ner sur­round­ed by many of our dear­est friends.

Avery’s school musi­cal, “Les Mis­er­ables,” whose prepa­ra­tion and dra­ma have occu­pied our house­hold for months, has come and gone, a glo­ri­ous spec­ta­cle far beyond any­thing you could dream of for a “school play.”

This morn­ing, with John’s moth­er back in Iowa, and John and Avery gone on their var­i­ous ways, I felt unac­count­ably sad.  The Christ­mas tree is up and sparkling, which should have made me happy.

But I felt unable to lift myself into the spir­it I knew I should have, appre­cia­tive of my life.

So it was all to the good that I had to get on my bicy­cle and head to the church.  To ring for a funeral.

We all, eight of us, gath­ered in the bellcham­ber, cheer­ful and quo­ti­di­en, dis­cussing plans for the week, chil­dren com­ing home from uni­ver­si­ty, ordi­nary bits of con­ver­sa­tion, in con­trast to the qui­et mourn­ers gath­er­ing in the church.

Then we rang, the bells half-muf­fled, which pro­duces a sound I can’t ful­ly describe.  One stroke is clear — well, clear as a bell, actu­al­ly ‑clear, gra­cious and true — and the next is shad­owy, real­ly more an echo than a true sound, but exact­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the clear stroke before.

Then we stood in silence as the cas­ket was brought in.  She was a lady in her 50s, hav­ing mar­ried rather late in life and so, left behind teenage chil­dren, walk­ing behind the cas­ket in dark clothes.  The church was full.  The piano began to play, and we ringers left the bellcham­ber qui­et­ly, emerg­ing into the glo­ri­ous Decem­ber sunshine.

How I hope it’s no one’s job to rake up these leaves.

My ring­ing friend Tere­sa and I stood for a moment, mak­ing our plans to gath­er again this evening to ring for a char­i­ty Car­ol Con­cert to ben­e­fit my social work organ­i­sa­tion.  We talked for a bit about wish­es for our own funer­als, and about our daugh­ters who would not be ready today to say good­bye to us.  “Aren’t we lucky, to come out of the church into this love­ly day,” Tere­sa said, and we looked at each oth­er with so much unspo­ken, and rode away on our bicycles.

I looked up at the clock tow­er as I passed and felt a com­plete rever­sal of my morn­ing’s inex­plic­a­ble sadness.

This after­noon I will see my social work fam­i­ly for the penul­ti­mate vis­it; it’s time for us to say good­bye to each oth­er.  Then I’ll come to the church and ring my bells once more, and sit down next to Avery in the church pew to lis­ten to Christ­mas read­ings and sing Christ­mas car­ols.  All these things will be a com­plete plea­sure not because they’re so spe­cial, but because they’re com­plete­ly ordi­nary, and I am here to do them.

All I need­ed was a bit of perspective.