All's Well That Ends Well

To the existentialist, history means nothing and the future is unpredictable; how pitiful that the human mind so limits itself.

This country boy did not fall in love with Shakespeare until college. Steele Building is now an administration building at UNC-CH but when I was a student there it was a dormitory where I lived. It was right next to the historic PlayMaker's Theatre. That Greek architectural structure which brings gladness to the hearts of so many alumni. One of my friends had introduced me to one of the actors in Shakespeare's play “All's Well That Ends Well”. He was standing outside the theatre smoking a cigarette one day and said he was leaving me a ticket for a play at the ticket office. It was at that play that I fell madly in love with Shakespeare. Little did my friend know, or did I know at the time, how many Shakespearean plays I would live to appreciate in the future. In England, at Stratford-Upon-Avon, I was at the play “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” and I went through the 400-year-old Shakespeare home, walked the streets where the Bard himself had walked.

Life, at best, is a very short experience. Death has become so fantasized on television, so sanitized to those left behind, almost an embarrassment to a family because your death interferes with their routine, their me-ism lifestyle. One of the most lovable, respected men I have ever known, who lived next door to me, died some years ago. One neighbor, Margaret, asked me to go with her to the funeral. This man, graduate of Williams College, successful by every measure with which men measure success, did not have one member of his family at his funeral, just a handful of business acquaintances and friends.

Years ago, I left instructions with my Trust, who will handle my estate, that my death will be only a paid interlude with no services and no visitation of any type. As several of my disabled friends have told me, people, especially family, have erased me from their memory and recognition while alive. Why should I want any of them around me after death? The Trust department will be paid to have my body cremated and interred next to my beloved parents and they will dispose of and distribute the philanthropy which I have left. While alive, even those to whom my wealth will be left, could not be bothered so why should they be bothered at my death? Although a 100% disabled service connected medical officer veteran of the Korean War, I have made very sure that your government will not pay one dime to bury me, not even to a flag under which I served proudly. The Veteran's Administration has done everything possible to deny me any benefits of my service, so why should I count on them for anything at death? It troubles me that those brave, young warriors, now and then, get such callous appreciation.

I had the joy of knowing real Christians, real people of quality, real people of concern. I have not forgotten one marvelous Christian lady who was a patient of mine for several years after I returned from the War. Living way out in the country (Grantham, Wayne County), she had been left a large inheritance by her family. She had never married, lived in the same house in which she was born, still used a hand pump to get water out of the well. Once, I remember this more than anything else, I had a full head of wavy black hair, which is now white and she said one day, “I just want to put my hands in your hair”. I felt, since she had never had a man to love, I could grant this gesture. Her extensive family were all members of a Pentecostal church where she played the piano for 75 years. They asked me to speak at one of their homecomings and I haven't forgotten the nice box of food she insisted I take home with me, knowing I lived alone.

One morning, her aging brother called and told me that Miss Lilly had died in her sleep and that nothing would please she or her family more than to have me say a few words at her service. I came face to face with real death, a real funeral, a real burial.

The large, framed church off the main highway was overflowing with community people (black, white, rich, poor). Her cheap, plywood casket covered with cloth, had been brought from her house to the church on a pickup truck (remember this lady was a large landowner, a woman of wealth who drove a car at least 50 years old). As the casket was taken out of the truck and her two brothers and four nephews took it into the church, the large crowd all sang Christian hymns. Every one of her former pastors, who were still living, spoke for about 5 minutes, giving the Christian message of death. The fact that she had already died to a life of sins ruin and Christ redemption many years earlier and had been baptized by immersion, thus, showing to the world her death to the old life of sin and rejection and her raised into a new eternal life. This was only clinical death whereby her weightless, vision-less soul without mass would go on to the glory for which Christ had redeemed her, having escaped through clinical death.

Several members of the community spoke about her Christian witness. I will never forget one old black man, weeping openly, who said, “There was much sickness in my family over the years and I could always depend on seeing her old car coming up the path to my house with food for my family”. This is the way she was known throughout her community. She and I had discussed, many times, the healing touch through the Holy Spirit in our hands. She always put her hands on the forehead of any sick in the community.

I only spoke a few words, I said that in her presence I felt the inspiration of Christ. I knew that Miss Lilly had not only been with Jesus but stayed with Him every moment of her life.

At the end of the service her two brothers and four nephews took her cheap casket out to the churchyard/graveyard to an open grave, which they had dug themselves, and with ropes lowered the casket down into the ground. Then, as the family and friends stood around singing (“Rock of Ages” and “In The Sweet By and By”), members of the family with shovels filled the grave with dirt. To this day, I can still remember the sound of the dirt hitting the casket.

This is the way death was handled by our forefathers who had the courage of faith, who knew that the splendor of life and death, the reality of trust, the assurance of faith, who knew nothing of political correctness or the insensitivity of letting a funeral home handle everything, except just a few minutes at a hypocritical service...a visitation with people staring at the corpse, the most insensitive, inhumane act of life.

Often, the funeral home goes to great extent to make the dead look better in death than in life. One of my friends, a mortician, said, “The wealthiest families have the very least to do with the deceased. Many never even look at the deceased after death, they just throw the church pall over the casket and it becomes “party time” for family and friends,...eating, drinking, celebrating”. One can celebrate the “home-going” of a Christian, but it is a sad thought to think of an unsaved, deceived loved one spending eternity in hell. The charisma of a beautiful inter-spring casket, adornment with expensive clothing, extravagance with flower arrangements, eulogies by lying, deceiving preachers do not change the eternal destiny of the soul, the real person, as the “shell” is buried, entombed or cremated.

All's Well that Ends Well