Funeral for Summer (Revised)

It’s hard to believe she’s gone. But, I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say our lives are better—richer—because she was around. We’ve laid her out in yellows and oranges and reds. I think that’s what she would have wanted. Let everyone take one last long look.

When Summer was here, do you remember how we would spend all day on the beach in Egg Harbor, after breakfast at the Village Café? Digging holes and making monuments and castles with the white rocks. Trying to hold back the Great Lake Michigan. And, afterwards, the kids buried each other in that sand. We reclined in the cool water and shuddered upon slipping in for the first time. Some kind of group baptism into a new life of rest. “We pronounce you dead to frantic busyness…” Dunk! Gasp! “But, raised to new life,” the gulls squawked. Or, at least raised to a few moments of sticking our heads above water and breathing deep. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I threw my keys, and my watch, and my calendar in a drawer and lost track of them for that week in Door County. Amen.

It seems like only yesterday, but when Summer was here, we all sat on that screened-in porch every night after dinner. The stars spilled out across the ink darkness. The Moon rose again over the bluff. The Green Bay breezes awakened the beach towels and swimsuits on the makeshift clothesline. The perfect time to try Le Faux Frog, yet another bad bottle of red wine we’d never heard of. And, outside in the yellow porch light glow, under the pines, niece and nephews performed an impromptu talent show. A hip-hop theatre of the absurd. Each act disintegrated into elementary kid snorting and falling down. Cirque Door So-Lame. Then that stray bat dive-bombed the stage. A scream. The curtain fell. And, the kids tumbled onto the porch for their reviews.

“Great choreography, but lacked passion,” my brother said.

“Creative, but needed a stronger finish,” their grandmother said.

“I don’t get it,” my sister said.

But, in the end, “Poignant. Riveting. Delightfully low-brow,” the Door Voice reported. Because of Summer, and because of that porch, I remembered how much I like all of you. And, wondered why we see each other so little the rest of the year. Life is so short.
Today, we commit Summer to the leaf pile and a good autumn wind. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. But there is no need for tears, because we have the hope of resurrection. That, as surely as Winter is coming, Spring will follow. Don’t be discouraged. Was it Pascal who said: What is harder to believe, that something that was alive at one time could come alive again? Or, that something that never was could be in the first place? Yes. Something like that. Now is the time to practice hope, brothers and sisters.

God rest our beautiful Summer. Amen. And, amen.

Please join us for a coffee and egg salad sandwich luncheon after the service. In lieu of flowers, gifts of beach towels and Le Faux Frog can be left on the front porch. Go in peace.