It was the third memorial service in as many weeks. People traveled great distances to remember a man who left behind family, and friends. His grandson was in the front row, and seemed sure that this day too was one worth smiling about. His round face peeked between the pews full of heads, half of which were gray. 

 

This was a man who enjoyed birds. His Lifer list was in the six hundreds. But he also had a heart for insects. Reptiles. Snakes. His family of origin had spent time outdoors long before it was trendy, when the demands of his father's job as a math teacher allowed. Their cabin was appropriately named Aftermath. 

 

He and his wife and I used to sing Danny Boy as a trio. We kept our eyes on each other to keep tempo, and to ride the retards. For the final three words we each blew out one candle, even as our voices faded into the darkness. 

 

Part of the grief was admitting that he had already gone. Dementia is a cruel thief when someone is in their eighties, or seventies. But their fifties? Conversation had long since evaporated, and memory had shut the door and hidden the key. His wife had stumbled through the decisions no one ever believes they will be expected to make. She put him in residential care. 

 

He identified with Charlie Brown, partly because he was often teased as a child. So when the Peanuts theme song came on as a postlude I laughed. Like most people I only recognize the first few bars of the song, the part from the Christmas special we watched every December. When the piano player kept going into another section of the composition, it reminded me that our friend's  humanity is more than the portion we knew. Even as we sat there tapping, he is waking up to a world that is both familiar and altogether new. And I feel sure that the lights are burning bright.