I’ve never cared for this song. But many Australian Quakers seem to love it, and so I try my best to appreciate their joy in singing it.

It surprises me then to hear these words flow from my mouth as I slowly pack up Jim’s things in his hospital room. His well-worn clothes. His new and very old Quaker books. The cards made by children and elders and all in between, all full of words of gratitude for his life.  Several opened bags of Lindt chocolate balls, one of the last things he could eat.

It is just he and I in the room, while we wait for the funeral directors to arrive and collect his freshly washed and dressed body. While it’s already been a few hours since his breathing stopped, I’ve felt compelled to stay, to continue to fill the room with the love, respect and gratitude that had been so powerfully present this last week, as Quakers held vigil with our Friend. As I sing, I change the ‘I’ to ‘we’-  ‘you have given us such treasure, we love you so’… Many of us had been willing to step into the room and hold watch with our Friend, not knowing the day or the hour which would be his last.  When the hour came, it just happened to be me, so I accepted the mantle of holding this final space on behalf of us all. It seems like my hands and feet are not mine, but ours. As my offkey singing fills the room and surrounds his body, it seems to be a benediction of sorts.  It didn’t feel like a private experience, I didn’t feel alone.

It was actually the second time I’d initiated the singing of this song today.  Earlier, Jim’s partner Helen, in seeing her darling-heart lifeless before her seemed overwhelmed by the cumulation of grief and dementia. So I began singing this song that she knew so well. She quickly joined me, particularly as I was skipping a line.  And the song brought us both to a restful and grateful silence. She doesn’t remember, but she’d also sung this song to Jim the day before, alongside a fellow Quaker. Yesterday as they sung, and Jim’s breath became punctuated by longer and longer pauses, I was almost sure I sensed his spirit rise from his body and depart. And perhaps it did. This dying process is incremental and who knows what happens at each stage.  

In days gone by, Jim would have been sitting in Quaker Yearly Meeting in his characteristically quiet and steady way, with Helen singing joyously and dancing to this song.  Jim was profoundly private. Profoundly independent. While the dying process was brutal for him, it also seemed to provide a gift that he couldn’t receive while he was well. He was able to be cared for by others. He found a way to ask for things, small at first but then more – being held in the Light, being held in our presence, having his hand held, and being helped to visit their beloved garden and home for the last times. We washed his clothes, watered the garden, received instructions of the Quaker tasks that someone needed to take on. Then we helped him take a few sips of water or helped him move so he was comfortable. As his final weeks were surrounded by his Quaker community, whom he had served so faithfully, it seemed every action we all took was us telling him how we feel – how valued he was amongst us. Not only for what he’d done, but who he was.

The funeral directors arrive.  The nurses suggest I might want to leave, as the next steps are less gentle.  I was sure I didn’t. I moved to a corner of the room, holding silence as Quakers are known to do – then found myself stepping forward.  I helped move him across to the gurney – and then as I helped wrap him in what could only be called a shroud – an image vividly crossed my mind, of Quakers of old, wrapping and burying bodies. In putting people into the ground, we stayed close to the reality that each of us, one day, will breathe our last.  The funeral directors were gracious as I continued to seek to be active hands and feet.  And so I wheeled our Friend down the hospital corridor, and into the lift, feeling like a pall bearer, knowing this moment would be the last time anyone who knew him would accompany his body. Again words seem to flow from my mouth ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From the earth we come, and to the earth we will return’.