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Sermon Index

WE REMEMBER THEM

by the Reverend Phyllis LeNoir Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 31st of December 2000

I grew up in a lower middle class home. Our bedrooms were so tiny that when I see them again as an adult I can hardly believe that two of us shared one of them without killing one another. We didn't have a car. We lived in a neighborhood that had seen better days. We always had food on the table, but we lived a pretty modest life.

Our most prized possessions during those years were a number of oil paintings that adorned our walls. My great-grandfather, Lee Hayes, had been an artist of some note. We had inherited many of his works. We treasured those pictures, treasured the knowledge that one of our ancestors had such a talent. Now, many of his pictures hang on my walls.

In his 90s, Lee Hayes wrote out the story of his life, complete with many small, hand-drawn watercolors and photographs of the people and places in his life. Two years ago, my father had copies made as Christmas presents for my sister and me. That, too, has become one of my most treasured possessions. This link with my past, with the ancestor who died when I was just a year old and, through his reminiscences, to his parents. I'd like to share a little story from it.

When Lee was a boy of perhaps 9 or 10 in Minnesota, a friend gave his father two eaglets. The eaglets had not yet learned how to fly. Lee's father put them out in the barnyard with the chickens where they grew up as though they were siblings.

Unlike the other chickens, however, the eaglets learned how to fly: "first upon to the fence; then around the yard, and later down to the creek. But they never went far from home." One day a soldier seeing the eagles and thinking they were wild, killed one of them. The other got away and flew home. Lee writes:

For several days the lone eagle moped about the yard or sat immovable on the fence. Then one day there was a change. I was in the yard and saw what followed.

The eagle lifted his head; slowly raised his body; stood on the fence a moment, then swept out into the air. He flew around the house a circle or two, then slowly, with outstretched wings, began to lift himself toward the sky. With wider and wider circles, almost above the house, he soared upward. Never before had he gone so high. I ran into the house and called mother to come and see. Higher and higher the majestic bird rose; 300 feet, 400 feet, 1000 feet from the groundall in those wonderful curves that only a large bird can make.

Finally at a great height, he began to float away toward the north, but still in curves, as though reluctant to say farewell. At last, leaving the curves behind, with an undulating motion, but in a more direct course, he gradually faded from sightand was gone. Forever free.

I love that story. Love what it says about my great-grandfather that 80 years later he still remembered that day, that flight. Had I witnessed it, I believe I, too, would never have forgotten it. Somehow I feel we share the wonder of this moment, this relative I do not remember and I.

Today, we remember the lives of those we have loved. Those we grew up with, played with, learned to fly with, those, perhaps who taught us to fly, or taught our parents to fly, and those, too, who became the companions of our heart, those with whom we flew many journeys before we parted.

I am remembering my mother today, who died earlier this year, but we each have our own losses to mourn. In thinking about loss, the image of that eagle keeps coming back to me. Its sibling was killed. For a few days afterwards, the surviving eagle moped about the yard or sat immovable on the fence. Then one day something changed. Life began to call to the eagle. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time to mourn, and a time to fly. The eagle lifted his head, slowly raised his body, stood on the fence a moment, then swept out into the air. Up he flew. Circling in ever higher, ever wider circles. At last, over a thousand feet in the air, he floated away to the north, "still in curves, as though reluctant to say farewell." Then, moving more and more directly, he faded from sight, "forever free."

Yet even as the eagle flew away, he hesitated, remembering what we cannot know. Eighty years later, Lee Hayes, in turn, remembered that moment. Now, 55 years after he wrote those words, I, too, share that moment. When a loved one dies, there is a time for mourning, for sitting immovable in our grief, for staying close to home, for yearning to turn back the clock, comforted by the familiar. But a time comes, too, for lifting our heads, if we are fortunate, a time to take once more to the sky, in ever widening circles.

At some time, if we are given time, we discover that something of our loved one still lives in us, still flies with us on life's journey, will not leave us until we in our turn die. If we have lived well, some scraps of us live onin the work of our hands, embroidery on a pillow case, a hand knit sweater, a deck we built, letters we wrote, a compass passed on through the generations. Or maybe we just leave memories. Whenever I eat a steak, I remember my aunt who visited me often while I was in college. She always gave me a break from my own cooking and took me out for the best steak in Bloomington. Aside from photographs, I have few tangible reminders of my mother either. But I remember most of all my mother's unfailing good cheer, her radiant smile when I came home for a visit, her love always, always present. After the initial weight of grief has lifted a little, we may find that those memories have become a part of the core of our being, that in a real way we are not alone, that some things do not die.

The trail behind us keeps disappearing around a bend. The eagle makes one last circle and disappears in the distance. We, too, take step after step until the pain and even the memory begin to fade. And yet, and yet. My mother lives on in me, in who I am, long after I must look at a photograph to remember her dear face. And if I live well, my life will live on in some small ways in those whose lives I touch. And so will hers. So will hers.

So long as we live, those who taught us to fly shall also live, for they are now a part of us. So long as our children live, and their children, and their children, they too shall live.

Let us remember the loved ones in our lives. Let us honor them in our own.

May your new year be blessed.