Here’s one other thing to share from last Friday.

I’ve experienced bereavement before as a young person and I’ve had that young Jeremy with me often this past month as well as Noah’s young friends on my mind. In preparing for the service this last Friday, I wrote a guide for the 5-20 years old crowd (there were nearly 20 joining us), in many ways just to enable young people to feel comfortable being present and authentic without the sense that adults had rules for them. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear young friend,

When I was an age similar to yours I had to attend an unusual number of funeral services for someone my age. In most cases, I didn’t really understand what was going on, didn’t have anyone I could ask questions that I worried might be a bit silly, and probably missed noticing some important things because I hadn’t been told to anticipate them. This is understandable, as the adults around me were also overwhelmed and feeling very sad, but now that I am an adult, I still carry that memory with me of feeling a bit confused and worried. If you would like, I’m going to explain here what is going to happen on Friday, why we chose to do those particular things, and why I think they are important. You can read this guide at your own pace and should feel free to skip the parts that feel boring or overwhelming.

Part 1: what happens before the funeral

When someone dies, especially someone who is close and special to you, it can be really overwhelming. There are a lot of people you have to talk to, they ask a lot of questions, or in some cases they feel awkward or embarrassed and don’t ask questions you were hoping they’d ask, or don’t feel comfortable being silent or distracted even when this might be the right thing to do. It’s a good idea to find helpers when things are overwhelming, and one of those people is called a “funeral director”. This was one of the first people I called on the phone to ask for help in getting things organised for Noah’s funeral. Our director is named Richard, and he has an office in Newtown where we live about 5 minutes away from our house. Richard helped up to remember all the details and took notes when we met at our house – he knew that we might forget things because of all the sad feelings and overwhelm.

We still don’t know why it happened, and that is one of the big questions that I keep wondering about when I think of Noah right now. When Noah died, a big team of medics and policemen came to our house to try to help. We even had a helicopter circling around our house which they called for us before they realised it was too late to save him. The medics took Noah’s body from our house, along with his favourite blue blanket, to a special part of the hospital in Aberystwyth. Katy and I went to the hospital to be with Noah when he arrived. Some nice people at the hosital gave us two soft elephants – we gave one to Noah and took the other one home and that helped us to feel connected even though we weren’t in the same place together anymore. The people at the hospital also really want to find out what happened to Noah for us, so they ran some special tests to try and find out what happened. They’ve said they won’t be able to say anything more for a lot of weeks, maybe not even until May or June.

When I was young, I didn’t feel as affected when old people like grandparents, or people my parents age died, because I was much younger than them. But I also had a classmate in school die when I was 10 years old. I remember wondering at the time if the same thing might happen to me, and this felt a bit scary. In case you’re thinking about those kinds of things, I wanted to share with you that even while we are still waiting for more information from doctors, one thing we do know is that the cause of Noah’s death isn’t related to doing normal things like eating snacks, playing games, hugging cats, sitting in cozy chairs, or catching a cold. We do know it’s a really rare and unusual thing that’s hard to find out, which is why those doctors are still doing their investigations. So if this is something you’re feeling worried about, I think Noah would want you to keep doing all your normal things and try to set aside that particular worry so that you can focus on your sad feelings, giving people in your family lots of hugs, and playing minecraft as much as possible.

Part 2: the funeral service

One of the jobs that our friend Richard the funeral director has done for us is to take care of Noah’s body while we’re waiting to take him to the crematorium in Aberystwyth. We’ve given him one of Noah’s favourite outfits to wear along with his cozy blue blanket. On the day of the service, we’ll all drive to the crematorium in our different cars and meet there so we can spend some time together. A few of us are going to drive with Noah over to Aberystwyth, but we decided to make this a small group so that we don’t jam up traffic and make the drive even longer for everyone.

When we’re all there, you’ll notice that rather than the usual wooden ones, we chose a wicker casket to hold Noah’s body, becuase he loved to carry around baskets collecting things, and also because we know he was concerned about sustainability. The crematorium has special rules which don’t allow us to have the casket open. We have had a chance to visit him ahead of time, talk to him a bit and put some special things inside the casket to go with him.

When we get to the crematorium a group of special people, Noah’s dad (me!), three of his Uncles (Ryan, Josh and Shane) will be what are called pallbearers. Isaac has also decided he’d like to be one, and has a cousin helping alongside him as we walk in. We’ll carry Noah into the crematorium. It felt appropriate to us to let Noah lead the way and then the rest of us will find seats inside. Richard the funeral director told me that it’s traditional for family to sit on the left side. I’m not sure why this is the case, but sometimes it’s a bit easier jus to go with the flow, so Noah’s grandmas and grandpas, uncles, aunts, cousins, as well as Katy, Isaac and I will be sitting over there. But I’d want to emphasise that we (and Noah) would have thought of everyone joining us on that day, including special friends like you, as part of our extended family.

My experience of funerals in the past is that they can be really overwhelming, some people will be crying loudly, other people won’t want to show their feelings. Some of us find it easier to feel sad when we’re with friends, and others find it easier to explore their feelings when they’re along. You might be wondering how you’re expected to act while you’re sitting in the crematorium and at the reception. The most important thing, I think, is for you to sit with your feelings in a way that feels natural, and we know that everyone has a different way of doing things. So if you feel like sitting quietly and watching, that’s fine – if you feel sad and want to cry a bit, that’s fine too. There might even be some memories that seem a bit funny, or your feelings might be all mixed up. It’s totally ok to feel a whole bunch of mixed up ways all at once, and I’m pretty confident that none of the adults have rules or expectations for how you’re supposed to act and feel.

Noah didn’t really like singing songs in church when we’d gone to church in the past, so we aren’t going to have any singing. We’ve picked out some nice songs that we’ve listened to as a family that convey some of our feelings right now. Also some minecraft music because Noah loved it.

It’s hard to know when you plan for a funeral, who the words are for – is it to try and help us to feel a bit better even though we feel sad? Or to speak truthful words about important values and beliefs that we have? When we were thinking about this, we thought that the best thing, and what we think would probably have been Noah’s preference would have been to share some truthful things about how we feel right now, rather than trying to talk about how we *want* to feel or imagine that people should feel. So we’ve chosen two poems to share at the start and end which say some of those things really well. I find that sometimes it is helpful to read things in advance, and with poems maybe more than once, so I’ve shared the programme for tomorrow along with the text of the poems so that you can read them ahead of time if you’d like.

One of Noah’s special interests was the bible – when we lived in Birmingham for a time he had about 8 different bibles that he insisted we carry around with us when we went out, and he really enjoyed reading and sharing bible stories. He also always felt free to ask questions about parts of the bible that were confusing, paradoxical, or contradictory, and we had many discussions about this as a family. We’ve chosen to read a verse that was one of Noah’s favourites, and have a little story to share about it from his Grammy.

After the memorial, we’ll all go over to the Golf Club where we’ve hired a room and gotten some nice snacks for everyone to enjoy. We’re hoping that people have a chance to talk about Noah, give each other hugs, and just be together for a bit. We thought that it would be nice to have lots of places to sit down and get cozy, so each of the tables is about one or more of Noah’s special interests: birds, minecraft, jokes, riddles, board games and so on. Some people at the reception are going to be feeling really sensitive and overwhelmed, so we’re going to ask if it’s possible not to have big loud games like tag or chasing in the reception (or outside). This is going to be hard, because I think we’re all going to have a lot of really big nervous energy without a good place to put it! And, the venue has a wonderful big floor, so I think this might feel really hard not to try and start a game of tag. But if you could, I’m hoping that maybe you’ll be able to find a cozy table and do some drawing, tell a story, play a game or some other thing as a good substitute and that won’t be too hard. And if you have a lot of big feelings and you’re not quite sure where to put them, you should feel free to tug on any person there and tell them about your feelings and hopefully we can help each other to feel a bit better together.

I’m so glad you are able to come and be with us. Even though it makes me feel sad, I really like to talk about Noah and all that we’ve experienced this last month. I’m sure you will have a lot of other questions or curiosities – and I’m very happy to chat about things in the months to come when we get to spend more time together. Looking forward to sharing a hug and maybe playing a board game tomorrow,

With love,
Jeremy

I’ve had a few friends ask if I could put up the text from Noah’s service this last Friday. Katy and I wrote this together, along with input from Isaac and a few gracious friends who helped read it over and help us think it through.

Memorial for Noah – 20 Feb 12:00

Procession with Noah and pallbearers.

Greeting: We’re so grateful to everyone who has been able to come today and feel the solidarity of friends across much distance to remember Noah, give thanks for his life, to commit his body back to the earth and to comfort one another in our grief.

We are mystified and stupefied by what has happened, but one thing that we are grasping on to in a time when we are left with so many aching questions is that even in this place of deep grief we have been met and surrounded and held by love. And while we don’t have answers our hope and comfort is that this same love is holding our sweet Noah.

Many funeral liturgies are not well suited to what we are doing today. They are written to celebrate the full span of human life and offer reminders about divine purpose and presence.

In a time such as this, we wish to affirm that it is right to feel anger, emptiness, panic, sadness, and confusion. The purpose of being together today is not to “get past” those feelings, but to share them with each other. This isn’t a day for answering questions but asking them together. We want to set aside platitudes today and honour the importance of silence and speechlessness.

We don’t want to pretend that we always knew or can even capture exactly today what our playful and enigmatic Noah boy was thinking. But the words and songs that we do have to offer today are intended to capture things that we have noticed and learned from Noah over these years.

 

We’d like to open with a poem by Andrea Gibson, “Love Letter from the Afterlife” read by Noah’s Aunt Mari

Andrea Gibson, “Love Letter from the Afterlife”

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

 

Silence for 1 minute

 

Scripture reading – Psalm 23 – Mark VanSkiver (Katy’s dad, Noah’s gramps)

We have a little introduction for the scripture reading from Marcia (Noah’s grammy): During those days when Noah was always carrying a stack of Bibles around… We had just gotten back to Birmingham from a trip to Ireland and Noah and I had plopped down in the living room and he pulled out three of his favorite Bibles. I asked him what his favorite Bible verse was and he said the 23rd Psalm and proceeded to read this from all three Bibles. I asked him what was his favorite and he said, “Mama’s Bible“. I asked why and he said, “Partially because it’s Mama’s Bible but also because I can understand it. He liked also his little King James Bible because it had a nice ribbon to go to Psalm 23 and it also had a nice box. But, he said, “it has words I don’t understand” The The Jesus Storybook Bible has pretty pictures but it doesn’t tell the full story…”

Here’s the text from The Jesus storybook Bible:

God is my Shepherd And I am his little lamb. Love feeds me. Love guides me. Love looks after me. I have everything I need. Inside, my heart is very quiet. As quiet as lying still in soft green grass In a meadow By a little stream.

Even when I walk through the dark, scary, lonely places I won’t be afraid Because my Shepherd knows where I am. Love is here with me Love keeps me safe Love rescues me Love makes me strong And brave.

Love is getting wonderful things ready for me Especially for me Everything I ever dreamed of! Love fills my heart so full of happiness I can’t hold it all inside. Wherever I go I know God’s Never Stopping Never Giving Up Unbreaking Always and Forever Love Will go, too!”

 

Faith’s reflection (read by Noah’s cousin and best friend Faith)

 

Jeremy, Katy and Isaac, what have we learned from Noah?

We (Isaac, Katy and Jeremy) wanted to share a bit with you all about Noah but there’s always too much to say and too little time. We thought it might be nice to share with you four things that we (and that “we” includes so many of us here today) have learned from Noah. It’s a good opportunity to celebrate the ways we are all striving in these areas and the ways that Noah challenged us to be our best selves. So here are four lessons Noah lived out everyday:

1. Noah was always and only his authentic self. This was a deliberate choice for him – one which we like to think we affirmed in different ways along the way as parents and brother – but it was his own decision and often against many social pressures. He continued to bring authenticity to every day, refusing to conceal his frailty, struggles or pretend to be someone else in order to make his life easier. Even as he grew older and some of his ways of finding comfort and holding presence became less socially acceptable, he continued to sink deep into sensory play, cultivate close connections with animals, birds and nature, pursued his focussed interests, fled from sensory distress and overwhelm, and engaged in alternative and creative ways of communicating. Noah was his own person, providing forms of truthful disclosure to the world through acts of authenticity. And he taught so many of the adults in his life to try and do the same through his example.

2. Noah wasn’t afraid to ask for help. He taught us that it is good to allow other people to meet our needs and to bring vulnerability in trust, whether that was about riding in a wheelchair without shame because walking was just hard sometimes, or asking us to bring him a snack, and seeking help with all the day-to-day needs we have, Noah reminded us that true strength isn’t found in independence, but in the ways that you place yourself in relational webs of interdependence and you can’t do that unless you are willing to share your frailty with others.

3. Noah showed how important it is to allow yourself to stay tender and feel all your feelings without shame. He would easily burst into tears when he felt overwhelmed, or sad, or touched by something beautiful. He kept his feelings close at hand and rarely held them in. You knew when his feelings had been hurt, or he felt scared or angry and equally when he felt joy and delight, silly or excited. By allowing himself to fully feel all his feelings and allow them to flow freely in and through him it enabled him to share and experience life more vibrantly

4. Bubba brought joy, exuberance, whimsy and irreverence. Though he had his serious teenage boy moments, at the heart of Noah’s days was a sense of pleasure, playfulness and love for the world around him. This carried forth in his constant sharing and crafting of jokes. He usually started his planning for April fools day in October. The pleasure of a puzzle, lego kit, solo board game, being silly, having a cuddle, digging a hole, catching snails, watching birds, memorizing digits of pi, sitting in the sand and watching the waves crash. Noah was content with simple pleasures. Not a day went by without him inviting us to do the same.
That is our sweet Noah boy, or at least a glimpse of him which we offer to you in hopes that we can remember Noah and in remembering Noah, find our own authenticity, vulnerability, tenderness, and joy.

 

Committal

We have entrusted Noah to Love’s mercy and we now commit his body to be cremated: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Noah belongs to God and to Him he returns.

We commend our son, brother and beloved friend Noah to the embrace of Love.

 

Benediction

How do we carry Noah’s memory as we go back into the world? How can we hold onto the sacred awareness of the paradoxical strength and fragility of life and beauty and love?

Let us go in peace. Look to and care for one another. May today be a day of release, where we forgive those things that need forgiving, share gentle words and hugs with friends to repair acts of unkindness or impatience. Let us open ourselves wide so that we can carry Noah’s vulnerability as we share life with one another. Let us share all of life that needs sharing. May the source of all Love help us to remember that there is beauty everywhere in all things and all people. May we find new ways to be honest with ourselves and vulnerable with each other and may Love give us everything that is good so that we may give and find comfort in each other.

 

Closing Prayer: Blessing for the Brokenhearted by Jan Richardson

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
—Henry David Thoreau

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.
Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.
Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—
as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,
as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,
as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

 

Closing words

We’d like to remind people of two things as you depart: (1) please come join us for the reception, details are on the back of your programme and (2) we have bubbles for everyone. Please take these with you as you go outside and send them into the world to celebrate the joy and whimsy that Noah brought to every day as a lover of bubbles, playfulness and simple joys.

(A riff on Psalm 39, in light of the fact that it is included in many of the funerary liturgies I have been reviewing this week)

I’ve always tried to be guarded in my words, even to the point of meekness, because those things left unsaid which lurk just beneath the surface… are dangerous. When you stray from that path of social convention, other things can also come loose. You may lose sight of the duty to hold space for all other creatures: weak, strong, good and evil. So I remained silent and still. And all around me there is violence and murder. I watch transgression unfold against the most basic terms – knitted into the fabric of the universe – of humanity and friendship. Men and women grasp for power and hoard wealth. The banality of all this evil causes me to burn with rage. I can no longer be silent, so like Job, I issue my question to the source of all life:

Does my life (or indeed anything) have purpose? Those theologians told me that I should embrace God-given vocation. In humility, yes, but still – they said – seek not leisure and detachment, but accomplish small purposeful tasks with your span. Build a better world.

Now suffering and death pervade the created world, set in motion by some of those same theologians and the question of legacy weighs so hard that it might suffocate me. This message that I gulped down in youthful foolishness and ambition feels uncalibrated, foolish, untrue. When I take an honest look and consider the time of the earth, the spans (and trajectories?) set in motion by Love, we are barely even a speck of energetic dust. Our time is shorter than a single disdainful gasp of the universe. We are just shadows, flitting about our business, then vanished by the shining lights of the present societal collapse. By the death of children.

So what, Love, do I wait for? I am chastened. silenced. consumed. I shake with weeping, I feel my weakness and desolation even into my bones. Will you weep with me? Will we ever feel joy again?

I am a stranger to thee: and a sojourner, like many of my generations before me. Spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I too go hence, and be no more seen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.” (Job 12:7–10)

“who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’”
(Job 35:11)

Noah loved birds. It was an recurring focussed interest of his. He memorised the contents of about a dozen bird guides when he was 8-10 years old and for a while we carried around this stack with us everywhere we went until many volumes became tattered and too worn to use. I’m not sure what it was that drew Noah to birds specifically. He wasn’t one to share his inner thoughts in most cases, and I suppose he probably simply wasn’t really that bothered to know why they interested him, only knowing that they where a creaturely friend of great variety and interest that made for good and quiet companions.

I think it is fair to say that Noah had something of an affinity with these winged creatures and that they shared some modes of existence. Noah was often one to land softly on something and then only stay long enough to be noticed and then he’d quietly lift off again. He preferred to to dwell in a flock, always asking when we’d have another opportunity for a large family gathering.

In the biblical literature, which was also an interest of Noah’s (think here of another stack of bibles he loved to have us carry around in public when he was a bit younger), birds play a special role. The Psalmist writes that God knows birds intimately: “I know every mountain bird by name; the scampering field mice are my friends.” (Psalm 50:11). In a moment of desolation, the Psalmist reveals his own penchant for bird-watching and notes his affinity to specific birds in his suffering: “I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places;
I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.” (Psalm 102:6–7) Birds are also harbingers of death, repeatedly referenced as agents who restore landscapes that have been battlefields of their corpses (see Rev. 19:17 for a particularly vivid portrayal of this agency). The bible is full of reports and predictions of violence, but this is only a reasonable reflection of the ways that many humans choose to be violent people in spite of our better natures.

But this morning the birds are singing loudly outside: a layered song with many different voices each distinguishable from the next yet complementary in their cacophony. I sit with them in gratitude for their willingness to carry on with their work day after day, providing us with wisdom in their comportment and care for one another. Like the Psalmist, at least for now, I am also the lonely sparrow on the housetop, caught up in silent thoughts of loneliness and loss.