Don't Go

A reflection in anticipation of burying mom's ashes

I'm really not one to dwell on the death of a loved one--or anyone, really. But I find myself processing my mother's December 15, 2024, passing slowly and carefully.

Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because she was my mom. Perhaps because she was the last direct living link I have to my childhood and a post-WWII generation (I was born in the last years of the post-war baby boom). Perhaps I want to fully process what goes on in grief--particularly my own. Perhaps I am just not as ready to fully let go as I imagined.

With this on my mind, I wrote the following this past Saturday--one week before her interment at South Mound Cemetery in New Castle, Indiana. Mom and dad lived and met and courted and were married in New Castle. All my deceased relatives--both Sheffields and Hays--are buried at South Mound. Burying her ashes will be the last official act my sister Debbie and I will need to carry out to bring what American civility calls "closure."

But, I wonder, if closure will be the outcome. That's what I was pondering as I wrote this piece.

In a week, we will bury her ashes—
all that physically endures of mom.

Having held her hand as she breathed her last,
having hosted a celebration of her life with family and friends
(how buoyant and warm a gathering it was),
having distributed or disposed of her last possessions,
having settled her accounts, we will,
at last, place her remains in the ground.

That, they say, will mean closure.
That, they say, will conclude months of grieving.
That, they say, will put the final nail in the coffin.
That, they say, will wrap it all up.

I’ve already removed a piano-top tribute,
boxed up cherished photobooks,
reduced the number of framed photos;
already put away memorabilia in
plastic tubs and file folders (they’ll reside
in basement storage until occasionally called
upon by nostalgia or heartfelt memories).

We’ll dutifully do all that is required
and necessary to fulfill our responsibilities.
Civility and decency and respectability will
be served and satisfied and we
will, technically, be relieved and released.

We will walk from cemetery grounds that
are nourished by all our deceased loved ones;
drive back to our cities and homes and daily lives
somehow, in some way, turning the page
toward what we do not yet know.

All this seems good and proper—
our minds and hearts confirm it.
But our hearts feel, also, something lingering—
something not ready to be ended,
wrapped up, put away.

“Don’t go,” we used to lovingly say to
family and friends even as they were
walking out the door and down the sidewalk.
“Don’t go,” even as we knew they needed
to leave and we needed to move on.
“Don’t go,” now, even as we must bid
a final farewell to my mother’s good life.

She is gone and we let go.
She is gone, yet we hold on.
She is gone and we move, not on,
but haltingly forward with memories and
gratitude and all that
grace may offer.

‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’

Wendell Berry's 2012 poem speaks to today's cultural chaos

I came upon this gripping, insightful 2012 Sabbath poem of Wendell Berry a while back. With him, my heart aches at the ripping fabric and cultural insanity of twisted words, shallow values, hollow justifications, and indefensible violence.

Praise "family values,"

"a better future for our children,"

displacing meanwhile the familiar

membership to be a "labor force"

of homeless strangers. Praise

work and name it "jobs."

With "labor-saving technology"

replace workers at their work

and hold them in contempt

because they have no "jobs."

Praise "our country" and oppress

the land with poisons, gouges,

blastings, the violent labors and

pleasures of the unresting displaced,

skinning the earth alive.

This is the way, the truth, the life.

Welcome the refugees set free

from the "nowhere" of rural America,

from the "drudgery" of the household

and the "mind-numbing work"

of shops and farms, into

the anthills of "liberation,"

the endless vistas of "growth,"

of "progress," the "limitless adventure

of the human spirit" rising

through inward emptiness into

"outer space." Welcome

the displaced naturally "upwardly

mobile" to their "better world"

as they gather bright-lighted

in "multicultural" masses

in the packed streets. Catch

those who inevitably

fall from the light-swarm

in meshes of "safety nets," "benefits,"

"job training," the army,

the wars, mental hospitals,

jails, graves. Forget

vocation, memory, living

and dying at home. This

is the way, the truth, and the life.

Flourish your weapons of official

war where they are needed

for peace, bring death by chance

but needfully to small houses

where children play at war

or a wedding that is taking place

so that the bride and groom

will not be separately killed,

for you have an enemy

somewhere, who must be killed.

Therefore forgive the unofficial

entrepreneur who brings

your weapons to your

school, your office, your

neighborhood theater, bringing

death randomly but needfully,

for his enemies are his

as yours are yours. This is

the way, the truth, and the life.

- from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Neighboring

Neighboring Includes Being There and Taking Part

It’s a privilege to engage directly as a resident urban neighbor with real neighbors in real time—on our block, on our streets, in our local coffeehouses, bars, eateries, shops, faith communities, schools and gathered meetings—and to take part in short and long-term problem solving and planning for a better quality of life for all.

A Dissenter in MAGA Society

 Bunhill Fields Beckons All Who Refuse to Kiss the Ring

While in London for brief visit a few years ago, I rode my bicycle to the John Wesley Chapel and burial site. Across the road from the Methodist founder’s memorial is Bunhill Fields—a dissenters’ cemetery where the likes of William Blake, John Bunyan, and Susanna Wesley (John Wesley’s mother) are buried.

What was their dissent and their punishment? All buried here refused to acknowledge the king of England as the head of the church. They refused to kiss the ring.

Their dissent was costly: they were excommunicated, lost basic citizen rights, lost income and pensions, and even a place to be buried—they lost access to public cemeteries. Eventually, a few compassionate Londoners donated properties where dissenters could at least be buried.

Today, dissenters to Trump and MAGA madness run real risks. Speaking out and acting for truth may prove costly at multiple levels—reputations, collegiality, ostracism, public rebuke, loss of business contracts, loss of economic opportunities, loss of personal income sources, etc. 

These are sifting, testing times. 

Are Americans faced with circumstances similar to the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s? Will most put heir heads down and go along for the sake of stability, income, etc. at the expense of labeled neighbors? Will most look the other way and make excuses as millions of vulnerable neighbors disappear and are disenfranchised?

Dissent in a MAGA society and with a President like Trump may be costly. One should count the cost. And then act courageously, boldly, unflinchingly.

Bunhill Fields forever!

Officially Retired and Looking Forward to a Third Act

Freshly Retired, I Lean into a Breathtaking Future

Today is my first official day of retirement. It is also the first day of exploring my Third Act.

 

After leading Near East Area Renewal (NEAR) for nearly 12 years of unprecedented affordable homeownership development and urban neighborhood renewal—and after 25+ years of guiding and growing local nonprofits—I’m downshifting for a moment.

 

Only for a moment! Even as I take a breather, I’m already looking forward to what’s next. I’m exploring possible paths into and through what environmentalist Bill McKibben describes as the Third Act. Having learned and led and built and accomplished well into my sixties, how might I invest my time and energy and capacities and resources in legacy years?

 

It's a serious question. I don’t have the answer. I’m living the question. I have notions and inklings. I have ideas and dreams. I have cultivated capacities and a readiness to translate learnings and experiences into fresh community impact. What does that look like? I don’t yet know.

But on this first day beyond traditionally-defined work, on this first day of a Third Act, I celebrate the gift of time and the opportunities I have been given and lean into a breathtaking—if unknown—future.

Revisiting Wendell Berry's Poem 'Look Out'

On the eve of an ominous (to me) Inauguration, the Kentucky farmer's call beckons anew

As we face the specter of another Trump regime of rollbacks on essential environmental protections for the sake of exploiting fossil fuels for sheer greed, 'Look Out' seems apropos. Wendell Berry challenges us to see and enact a different way forward.

'Look Out' is from Berry's collection of poems titled Given (Shoemaker, Hoard, Washington, D.C., 2005). This is what Wendell Berry sees outside his Port Royal, Kentucky farmhouse:


Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man's life with their old bark,
the river quivering under the morning's breath
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.

Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.

The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.
Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the households of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is the willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.

Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.


What do I see? When I look out my window, do I see far enough--deeply enough, broadly enough--to perceive what Berry sees? And if or when I perceive such, am I caring or daring enough to leave my window and go out and say "no" to the Lords of War--to Money and Fire--and "yes" to life? Or do I just stand and stare, or turn away and hope someone else will take care of it?

John Franklin Hay
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

The Unassuming Pianist

Mom offered her skilled art as a lifelong volunteer

I set up a home tribute (ofrenda) to my mom on top of this old baby grand I rescued from a neighbor a few years ago.

Janet Sheffield Hay, who passed on December 15th, was an unpaid/volunteer church pianist. For over 50 years she played for congregational singing (3 church services a week), choirs and seasonal cantatas, ensemble accompaniment, offertories, and singalongs. She was ever faithful and always ready. 

The upright piano in the homes of my childhood was well used. She practiced on it routinely, though not obsessively. At mom’s insistence, my sister and I took piano lessons and practiced on it (I was permitted to drop piano lessons and take up trumpet lessons in 5th grade). Singing gathered ‘round the piano with family and friends was a common happening (with three of my children in the photo).

Mom typically sight read music flawlessly and accommodated some pretty perfectionistic and demanding musicians (pathetic divas) without protest.

I think the fact that she played well and so frequently without identifying herself as a pianist is remarkable. If you didn’t know she was an active pianist, you’d not find out from her.

A few weeks before she died, someone donated a beautiful grand piano to the assisted living facility where she lived. I helped her walk to it and she played it for a short while (photo). I looked forward to more times with her playing that piano, but that one time was it.

I’m grateful for the gift of the love of music and the insistence on practice and learning to play musical instruments that she instilled in me. 

I just want the world to know what she would never tell: Janet Sheffield Hay was an artist at the piano and a faithful church pianist throughout her life.