Last Saturday was the funeral of a 33-year-old woman named Alison Hill, who passed away after a long and sometimes frustrating struggle with health difficulties that caused her terrible pain. Her death marked the end of her suffering and her release into a better life, but it’s still hard to view her death as anything but the last chapter of a terrible and undeserved misfortune. It’s especially so for her family and for her close friends – but even for someone like me, who was only close to Alison back when she was a youngster growing up at Holy Communion, this is very hard to take in.
But if anything made all of this a bit more bearable, it was the extraordinarily beautiful and meaningful funeral in which this vibrant and unique woman was celebrated and remembered. I wish you could have been there, even if you never knew Alison, because even a complete stranger would have been deeply moved by what transpired in the sanctuary of Holy Communion Lutheran Church.
And the beauty began transcendentally with the prelude played by Alison’s dear friend from childhood, Lindsay Smith Banman, who stood up front and played Ashokan’s Farewell (the main musical theme from the Ken Burns Civil War series) on the violin . . . a cappella . . . in the most moving and exquisite rendition of that music I have ever experienced. Part of it was just knowing that it was Lindsay, standing up in front of that large congregation so bravely, playing through her grief and expressing such love. But even apart from all that, on the most technical sort of level, Lindsay played this piece with exquisite poise and sensitivity, shaping the phrases with such care, allowing the music to breathe and flow and fill that beautiful, reverberant space. I have never heard anything quite like it before, and I dare say I’ll never hear anything like it again. None of us will.
The service itself was relatively simple- but such a lovely tribute to the impact which Alison had on those who knew her and loved her. The eulogies offered up were an intriguing array of contrasting voices, each contributing to the full portrait of who Alison was and what she stood for. The sermon by Pastor Walter Hermanns spoke unstintingly about the terrible pain with which Alison had lived for so long yet offered up real hope. And two solos that were sung had something important to say as well. One was a song by Jimmy and Carol Owens called “Trusting is Believing” that I chose to sing because over twenty years ago, Alison was one of six gifted youngsters who sang that song at Holy Communion. (A recording of that very performance is on my Listen page.) The lyrics are:
Trusting is Believing that God will keep His word
and Trusting is Believing your every prayer is heard. And
trusting is letting God know that you’re depending on Him.
It’s feeling His forgiveness within.
Trusting is Believing that God really cares for you
and Trusting is Believing just as a child would do.
It’s like giving your hand to Jesus
and knowing He won’t let go.
So trust HIm because He loves you so.
I could think of no better thought to share with everyone grieving over Alison’s untimely death. I knew it would have special meaning for Alison’s parents, who would recall her singing it so many years before. And frankly, because it was a children’s song, I knew it was musically simple enough that I would be able to sing it even with a grapefruit- sized lump in my throat. And just to keep the emotions at bay, as I sang it I did not picture those six youngsters from Holy Communion. I pictured the chorus of kids back in Atlantic I saw sing this for the first time- a chorus which included my sister Randi – in grade school at the time – and a stocky, happy-go-lucky boy from our church named Bill Nichols. . . many years before he became a champion wrestler and football player for Atlantic High School. I actually thought about nothing except little Billy Nichols singing this song, and that helped me get through it relatively intact.
Almost as hard for me, emotionally, (surprisingly) was when I played for a cousin of Alison’s as she sang an incredibly beautiful and moving song by Laura Story called “Blessings.” The lyrics spoke powerfully to the potential for trials and troubles to be positively transformative for us, though it might be the last thing in the world we want for ourselves. I did not know this song until the funeral, and it shook me to the core. Frankly, I was glad to only be playing the accompaniment for it and not having to sing it – which would have been so hard. The lyrics:
We pray for blessings. We pray for peace. . .
comfort for family, protection while we sleep.
We pray for healing, for prosperity.
We pray for Your almighty hand to ease our suffering.
And all the while You hear each spoken need,
yet love is way too much to give us lesser things.
‘Cause what if Your blessing come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what
it takes to know You’re near?
And what if the trials of this life
are Your mercies in disguise?
We pray for wisdom. . . Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near.
We doubt Your goodness. We doubt Your love,
as if every promise from Your word is not enough.
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea,
and long that we would have faith to believe …
Listen to this song on Youtube if you can – and you can also find a clip where the composer, Laura Story, talks about how a very serious health scare with her new husband was the inspiration for this song.
The service ended with Alison’s dad Jim walking up to the lectern – in what felt like a spontaneous gesture on his part, although I have no way of knowing for sure- to thank all of us for our concern and prayers and help in this difficult time. As I listened to Jim thanking us, I was reminded of the occasion a few years ago when Kathy and I needed an attorney to represent us in a matter involving the man who had re-roofed our house and run off with all of the money rather than paying the suppliers – in effect, leaving us to pay those bills a second time. It was incredibly scary because we were talking about thousands of dollars that we didn’t have. Jim HIll was our lawyer and could not have been more reassuring. I’ll never forget that first meeting in his office, when he began describing what was going to be happening. And as he laid it all out, Kathy and I both noticed that Jim was saying “first, we will need to. . . after that, we will be . . . Of course, it’s possible that we might . . .” and on and on. It wasn’t Jim sitting across from us, shielded by that enormous desk, saying “YOU will need to. . . “ By using the simple word “we” in that conversation, we knew that we were truly in this together, and that come what may, Jim was going to shepherd us through the process …. and hold our hands if necessary …. until the matter was resolved, one way or another. (And eventually it was.)
I trust that Jim and Nancy experienced the powerful reassurance of WE in that funeral – as they already had, even before Alison’s death – and as I know they will in the days and weeks to come. Almost anything in life is bearable when we know that we are not bearing it alone.
pictured above: Lindsay Smith Banman, Alison’s dearest childhood friend, playing the prelude for her dear friend’s funeral. O that you could have heard it . . .