Rest in peace

We had another funeral yesterday: my friend Grace F., who died suddenly on Wednesday evening. She was an Organist and a member of our parish.

It was a scramble to prepare some music for a Saturday funeral. Here is some of the organ music. Without explanation, it would seem a bit strange.

First, there is the Bach Prelude in E flat that begins the Third Part of the Clavierübung. I often play the accompanying Fugue, often known as the “St. Anne” Fugue because of the accidental resemblance of the first theme to the head motive of the hymn tune; I played it recently, at the funeral on December 22. But the Prelude is another matter. It was a special favorite of Grace's. I had last played it on Trinity Sunday; it had a solid fingering in place, and I figured it was worth taking a chance on getting it ready in two days.

In the liturgy, this was the prelude. As I played, Nora came and told me that we would be five minutes late while guests were continuing to arrive, so I had time to add the chorale prelude “Vor deinen Thron,” which I played under similar circumstances on Dec. 22.

After that in the recording: the tolling of the church bell. I left it in with the ensuing silence as a remembrance of Grace.

The recording then skips ahead to the postlude, the aforementioned Fugue. Unless there is reason to play something else (such as a request from the family), I play this as the postlude for funerals.

The idea is not by any means original. Many years ago, I was with a group from my congregation at the Presbyterian worship and music conference at Montreat, NC. It is a grand event with about one thousand musicians of all ages, with a few liturgically-inclined clergy. That year, a young woman in the high school choir suddenly fell down dead, right in the middle of a choral rehearsal. It was quite a shock to the entire conference, especially her fellow high school choristers. I have to this day most profound respect for the high school director that year, Mr. John Yarrington, for the way he spoke to the two-hundred or so young people when they next gathered, that afternoon.

It was decided that we would have a memorial service for the young lady right there at the conference. The girl's family had arrived by then, I think from Florida. We sang many hymns. All of the choirs sang: children, junior high, high school, adults, handbell choirs. Scriptures were read. We even had Holy Communion, which in a Presbyterian gathering would not be as expected as it would be among Episcopalians.

The organist that year was Mr. Gerre Hancock. At communion, after the high school choir sang their anthem (and the rest of us wept), he improvised in his masterful way, and all of a sudden, I realized that he had worked his way around to the beginning of the St. Anne Fugue. It was the most perfect musical statement for that moment that could possibly have been offered, binding all that we had done and experienced into the glory of God.

I still remember that young person, taken from her family and friends all too soon. May she rest in peace. May Grace rest in peace, and all of my other friends, a list that continues to grow.

One of the blessings of growing older is that as time passes, more of your friends and family are on the Other Shore. Eventually, as with my 95-year-old mother, pretty much all of them are gone and you alone are left. That makes it easier to say good-bye to this life when the time comes; it becomes increasingly clear that you are going home, never more to part.