Because We Had to Stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Oh, the reminders of the fragility of our lives, and of the quick pace of our journey here. For the past couple of days, I had the privilege of visiting with a cousin I hadn’t seen in 26 years. Those many years ago—enough for a child to be born, graduate from college, marry and have his or her first child—it was the occasion of our Mamaw Hollis’s funeral. She was 93 and hoping to make 100. This time, it was in tribute to our aunt, Mary Louise Hollis Todd, who was looking toward her 92nd birthday, even though she had told me many times since the death of her beloved husband William Woodrow “Frog” Todd in 2000, that she just wanted to be with “Frog”.

Something related to us by one of her caregivers—a devoted friend to her—at the visitation two days ago reminded me of what Aunt Mary had told me. In the several days before the fall that compromised her to the hospital and too quickly to the capable hands of hospice, Aunt Mary had cried as she remembered the love and hard work that she and Frog had lavished on the two-plus acres and the rambling colonial style home they had built a half century ago on the outskirts of Houston. Now a largely commercial area within the city limits, populated by businesses and larger-than-life condominiums, Aunt Mary remembered the home across the street, no longer there. Change that insists we take our hats off to it has caused us to stop and take account.

No, Aunt Mary was never maudlin. Yes, Aunt Mary was sentimental about her Hollis family. She loved us all, and she was beloved by us, and by the many friends she made along the way. We were mostly family and a few friends who gathered to pay tribute to Mary Louise Hollis Todd. Loving, kind, faithful, elegant, fun loving, and sometimes ready to be entertained by a little off color humor—these were some of the terms offered by her nephews and nieces, as we sat in the common area of the mortuary on the afternoon of the viewing. What we said was translated by the young minister, a distantly related cousin to Mary, into the words of comfort and joy he offered at her funeral. We laughed, we nodded and sighed, catching one another’s glance, and then finally we wept, as each of us walked forward and lingered at her casket. It was open, and she was beautiful. Of course, we realized it was only her earthly shell that we gazed at, and likely, most of us failed to remember that she was right there with us in the room. And she is here with me as I write these words—guiding me, loving me.

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne in 1623; “Perchance he for whom this bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him.” We are all part of one another—in our love here, in our individual and collective memories, in our God consciousness. Aunt Mary is not away.

The challenge is never to forget from whence we come and always to be mindful of and sensitive to what is expected of us by the creator. The Holy Scriptures in the Christian tradition command and implore us to love one another, to care for one another. Some of us do it for our parents, for our siblings, for our aunts and uncles, for our children who precede us in death, and some of us for our friends. Aunt Mary knows, and we all know. She cared for her mother and aunt and husband. Her nieces, nephews and friends cared for her. We really don’t know what will be asked of us, but hopefully, before waiting too long, we realize our rights and responsibilities.

Loving is what I have always known. I was taught this by my Mother and Daddy, who were raised in the Christian tradition. Long ago, though, I realized that my faith walk is only one person’s walk with God and that God, God the Father and Mother, God of no gender, Spirit, is way too big to be constrained by our human understanding and our limiting and sometimes even destructive choices of worshipping and following. There are many, many ways to make this walk—all of them valid and wonderful and wondrous. Something I read recently from a Zen Buddhist spiritual leader described love as benevolence, compassion, joy and freedom. I think about this, and it brings me comfort, as it challenges me.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:34; Matthew 6:21) As our daddy, Russell Hollis, would say, “that’s what the Good Book says”. Our mother echoed this belief with kind conviction. It is what they both lived. The same is true for all those Hollises we have loved— Stephen Edgar, Russell, Pat, Ray, Sallie, Frances, and now, Mary. Many, many, almost countless, when I consider all of the Hollises I have known and loved, and on Mother’s side, the Fuchs family, but most especially our mother, Tena Elizabeth.

On this day, in tender, palpable remembrance, I give thanks for family and love. And I accept the challenge to those of us who continue this journey to live out the love, compassion, joy and freedom described by our Zen Buddhist brother. “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love…” (prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, 13th century)

Because We Had to Stop for Death—Normangee, Texas (July 18, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis