May the Lord give you increase, you and your children! May you be blessed by the Lord Who made heaven and earth! The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth He has given to the children of man. The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord, from this time forth and forever more. Praise the Lord! (Verses 14-18)
Mother lay on an embalming table dressed in the pink shantung suit she'd picked out months earlier to wear in her casket. I'd helped her, one balmy late spring day in 1985. Pink was her signature color, pink lipstick to match always slathered across her beautiful arched lips. "Would you do my hair?" she asked that day. "Like you did Irene's?"
At thirteen years old, I'd gone to the mortuary at the request of my Uncle Buster to fix my aunt's hair as I'd done every week for her long battle with cancer. He wanted her to look as she had during those difficult days. My doing her hair had been such a blessing, he'd said. She would be so pleased. Mother was hesitant to allow this. I was so young, and all. But I was undaunted by the idea. As it turned out, Mother and another aunt went with me as we coiffed Irene's hair and manicured her body's nails in preparation for her viewing later in the day. It really didn't seem that odd to me. My aunt was so desperately sick. She'd seemed almost gone so much of the past few months. I was glad to see Uncle Buster so relieved. So glad to see his bride looking so lovely lying there.
Mother, however, was a different thing. I wasn't sure I could do it. "I'll try, Mother."
What made it possible, though, was our conversations about where she'd be when I was touching the mommy that was gone from the tent she'd been occupying for her seventy-one years. My little sister came with me, not free of some trepidation, but bravely. We both knew our tasks as soon as we saw Mother's face. Made up like a kewpie doll, blue eye shadow and red lipstick. I curled our mother's hair while Chris wiped her face and started over. Mother's beautiful skin finally shone through, a touch of pink on her cheeks and pink on her mouth. We noticed, though, as we walked away, that Mother's eyes had been slightly opened in the process of reconstructing her. She looked as if she were playing possum--peeking out to see what was going on. They stayed that way throughout her visitation and funeral. Mother seeing just who cared and who didn't, it seemed to me.
"You are holy...holy...holy," Mother would say to the Lord at the end of each of her earthly prayers that season of her dying. A worship from a child of God's soon to look upon His beaming face as He welcomed her home. Her physical body now was no longer able to speak it. Dead now to the ability to praise Him on this earth. Radiant and transformed, her new self danced and cried it to the Lord upon His throne. But she used up all her earthly words the day she died. Time up for speaking blessing. Time also up to pour into her children the rich cache of spiritual lessons Earth taught her. But I could caress the body she'd occupied and straighten the curious mask only because I knew she was praising the Lord from that time forth.
Thus the blessing in this psalm, I think. Bless our time here on Earth, Father! Increase the richness of our lives. May the cream of our relationship with the Father spill onto our kids so they know at the time when we are silenced here that we are shouting there! That forever our blessing God on Earth continues into eternity. And the spiritual inheritance of our children is an increased faith, powerful prayer lives, a deeper knowledge of the Father and peace. Man rules the earth on which we stand, and we are the trumpets that declare to him or her that the Lord made heaven and earth, while we live and breathe. Our time here is brief. Let us declare Him while we can!
Mother lay on an embalming table dressed in the pink shantung suit she'd picked out months earlier to wear in her casket. I'd helped her, one balmy late spring day in 1985. Pink was her signature color, pink lipstick to match always slathered across her beautiful arched lips. "Would you do my hair?" she asked that day. "Like you did Irene's?"
At thirteen years old, I'd gone to the mortuary at the request of my Uncle Buster to fix my aunt's hair as I'd done every week for her long battle with cancer. He wanted her to look as she had during those difficult days. My doing her hair had been such a blessing, he'd said. She would be so pleased. Mother was hesitant to allow this. I was so young, and all. But I was undaunted by the idea. As it turned out, Mother and another aunt went with me as we coiffed Irene's hair and manicured her body's nails in preparation for her viewing later in the day. It really didn't seem that odd to me. My aunt was so desperately sick. She'd seemed almost gone so much of the past few months. I was glad to see Uncle Buster so relieved. So glad to see his bride looking so lovely lying there.
Mother, however, was a different thing. I wasn't sure I could do it. "I'll try, Mother."
What made it possible, though, was our conversations about where she'd be when I was touching the mommy that was gone from the tent she'd been occupying for her seventy-one years. My little sister came with me, not free of some trepidation, but bravely. We both knew our tasks as soon as we saw Mother's face. Made up like a kewpie doll, blue eye shadow and red lipstick. I curled our mother's hair while Chris wiped her face and started over. Mother's beautiful skin finally shone through, a touch of pink on her cheeks and pink on her mouth. We noticed, though, as we walked away, that Mother's eyes had been slightly opened in the process of reconstructing her. She looked as if she were playing possum--peeking out to see what was going on. They stayed that way throughout her visitation and funeral. Mother seeing just who cared and who didn't, it seemed to me.
"You are holy...holy...holy," Mother would say to the Lord at the end of each of her earthly prayers that season of her dying. A worship from a child of God's soon to look upon His beaming face as He welcomed her home. Her physical body now was no longer able to speak it. Dead now to the ability to praise Him on this earth. Radiant and transformed, her new self danced and cried it to the Lord upon His throne. But she used up all her earthly words the day she died. Time up for speaking blessing. Time also up to pour into her children the rich cache of spiritual lessons Earth taught her. But I could caress the body she'd occupied and straighten the curious mask only because I knew she was praising the Lord from that time forth.
Thus the blessing in this psalm, I think. Bless our time here on Earth, Father! Increase the richness of our lives. May the cream of our relationship with the Father spill onto our kids so they know at the time when we are silenced here that we are shouting there! That forever our blessing God on Earth continues into eternity. And the spiritual inheritance of our children is an increased faith, powerful prayer lives, a deeper knowledge of the Father and peace. Man rules the earth on which we stand, and we are the trumpets that declare to him or her that the Lord made heaven and earth, while we live and breathe. Our time here is brief. Let us declare Him while we can!
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