My journey through the zone continued as I headed a short distance south from the largely Jewish enclave of Highland Park, Illinois to a memorial service in Kenilworth, reputed to be the wealthiest, whitest, and most exclusive suburb in the Midwest. I felt as out of place driving by the stately homes draped in wreaths as Ebeneezer and company must have felt caroling among the heathens, a character in the wrong play.
The church was the most beautiful I've ever seen, ornate yet tasteful, just the right size to house a large crowd yet still feel intimate. The person being remembered was my age, a friend's husband who finally succumbed to a rare form of bone cancer after a six year battle. I stood silently with the crowd as they sang haunting but unfamiliar hymns, only able to participate for the first verse of Amazing Grace. When the music sounded suspiciously like Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, I started to belt out the words until I realized the lyrics had been changed and everyone else was singing about Christ, not a mountain flower. Yes, I was definitely a fish out of water.
But strange songs and stained glass images of Ben Franklin instead of Moses rows of bright red poinsettias aside, I felt oddly at home in this church, surprisingly comfortable. Like everyone else there, I sensed the unfairness of such an untimely death, the passing of a person born in 1959 -- just like I was. The pastor had spent considerable time with my friend's husband during his ordeal, and was able to speak with first hand knowledge of his struggles, both physical and spiritual. Much of the service revolved around the dying man's own journal entries, writings about fear and puzzlement and, above all else, hope. Hope, even in the face of a certain unpleasant outcome. The words, read to us by his old college buddies, were instructive and profound.
Through his writings, he had gained strength and overcome fear. My friend, his wife, spoke of his final words, semi-conscious assertions about being pulled away from his world of stately homes and material comforts and beckoned toward a better place. She literally watched him go off on his journey, listened to him as he traveled from his wealthy, white, exclusive earthly home to an unfamiliar place where, nevertheless, he would not feel like a fish out of water.
A place where, no doubt, Christmas carolers serenade dreidel spinners as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a place free of petty earthly concerns. I'm nowhere near ready to abandon this world, with all its faults, but when my time comes, I sure hope there's room at the inn.
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