One Life

It's funny how in life we reside under myriad roofs, be it religion, political affiliation, or race. But in death, none of that matters - we are all under the same roof.

Driving through Elmlawn Cemetery on a Thursday morning, one in a long processional of cars, I noticed the graves are for the most part sectioned off by the individual faiths, but still all a part of the same graveyard. Whether our bodies are cremated or buried, we all end up in a graveyard under the same sky.

For a moment, it makes everything else we struggle and battle over throughout the course of our lives seem trivial. What's the point?

A few days earlier, my family received a phone call that my great-grandmother wasn't doing well after a mild bout of pneumonia, one of several over the past decade. A few hours later the phone rang again, letting us know that she had passed on.

I was saddened, but I found myself smiling. As a young college student, I'm thankful to have known her at all. At 93 years of age and barely that in weight, she was a feisty little wisp of a person who said the most outlandish things and always left us aching with laughter.

Four years ago, at a birthday party in her honor, she dared to find out what was under the bag piper's kilt.

Her favorite story was of her boat ride from her homeland of Scotland to Toronto at the age of 14. She will always remind me of lavender and Scottish plaid.

"How many do I have now?" She would ask. The matriarch of the Coleman family, even she had trouble keeping everyone straight. The final total was five children, 18 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and one great great-grandchild.

Those friends and family remaining, found chattering away and sharing past stories at her funeral, are proof of a life well spent.

Upon hearing of her death, my 9-year-old sister was full of questions, trying to absorb the meaning of what it meant.

"Why do people have to die?"

"So new people can be born," I told her, eager to avoid her questions.

"But why can't they all just stay alive?"

"That would be an awful lot of people."

There was a funny look on her face as she considered this bit of information. I tried to console her by keeping the facts simple, people are born and people die. That is just the way it is.

"But why does it have to be that way?" she asked again. I shrugged. Her questions were becoming too deep and uncomfortable for me to answer.

Even so, it was almost comforting to know that even my 9-year-old sister is stumped by life's great mystery.

It is the universal question at the root of religious bloodshed and continuing ethnic discrimination. How we each come to terms with this single question forms each of our distinct views of the world. It can make or break a person.

In the beginning, you look for answers that are beyond mortal understanding, answers not even religion can guarantee. I suppose this is the time for soul searching, when we feel lost and alone before we come to terms with what we believe in, if anything.

But throughout life's journey, you soon realize it isn't about gaining the answers, but working towards them throughout life's long journey, step by step.

A couple of years back, my great-grandmother went coffin shopping. She loved to talk about her death, probably because it put her family in a thither. She bragged that she would soon be riding on "the silver bullet," the name she dubbed her coffin. I know she would have had a grand time at her funeral, her large family all in the same room, celebrating her life.

The atmosphere was rather composed at the wake and later at the funeral service. As we exited our cars at the cemetery, we were each handed a single red rose. It was a beautiful day, a blue sky filled with clouds shaped like party streamers. We gathered around her casket for our final goodbyes.

We stood silent, the herd of us, as the bag piper played "Amazing Grace," the sound filling us with the memory of her. Not a single eye was dry.

In moments like that, amidst distant relatives and close family, dying and finding the answers don't seem so bad.

We are dealt one life with which to spend well.