3/26/25
She was very different from me politically and religiously, but I liked her anyway
Cindy
May you get the salvation that you worked so hard for in life
Believing things I do not believe
But believing them sincerely
I hope you get what you worked for
May you find your lost family members in the afterlife
May we all find each other there
Even though I do not believe it is so
I can still pray it is so.
May choruses of smiling angels serenade you to your eternal home
May you lie upon velvet cushions with shining, gold braids
May you eat the sweetest of fruits
May you sprout beautiful, huge, iridescent wings and fly through gentle, puffy clouds.
May you learn to play ethereal music on the harp
May handsome centaurs bow to you and tell you words of great wisdom
May adorable little birds sing you sweet songs
And bring you garlands of flowers in their beaks
May those flowers never fade, but instead stay fresh forever all about you
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Addendum: May 15, 2025
I don’t know why I keep thinking about Cindy . I didn’t know her very well. I only saw her occasionally at family events – and sometimes on Facebook. She was the wife of my blood cousin. They were the cousins I was most in conflict with. The husband teased me as a child. they were fairly far away. Their religion and politics were different from mine. He unfriended me on Facebook, but she didn't.
Yesterday, I was imagining myself speaking at her funeral. There was a funeral near her home shortly after her death. There will be a second one in our vacation community. The speech went as follows:
I first met Cindy, as I recall, at her wedding to my cousin – a pretty, young, happy bride. I didn’t see her very often… A few family events… Posts on Facebook.
I remember the wedding, in a church. My cousin, who is an evangelical Christian, had his arms raised over his head, praising God, which is something other people in our family generally didn’t do. I was sitting in the audience, in pews, with other members of our family. Maybe that was the wedding where we had to be in the back, because my autistic son couldn't tolerate organ music -- tho we put hearing protectors on him that time, I think, so he was able to stay.
It never occurred to me that someday a lifetime would’ve passed, that she would’ve had children, grandchildren – possibly great-grandchildren? And, I think, a career – possibly in education? And, then, seemingly in a flash, I would be sitting in another church, in pews with my family, and it would be her funeral.
The wedding doesn’t seem so very long ago. It doesn’t seem so very long ago that she was that young, happy, pretty bride — sort of perky, with a lot of spirit.
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This wasn’t part of the fantasy speech, but I’m thinking it:
Her mother didn’t look very well at the time. Cindy hadn’t been looking well recently. I never mentioned it. I remember her face changed. My father’s face changed when he had cancer. We didn’t realize until later that the changing in his face reflected the cancer inside his body, before it was diagnosed. It never occurred to me that the change in Cindy‘s face meant that she might have undiagnosed cancer.
She wasn’t that old. I think she may have been over seventy, but just barely. Perhaps I should’ve warned her.
Is that it? Do I feel guilty? Is that why I keep thinking about her?
I asked Bing image creator to create images of angels with harps and a rainbow.
I tried putting the whole poem into Bing image creator. Then I got images with good looking gibberish similar to my prayer. So I took one of those images, deleted the gibberish, and put in my prayer.
