All Souls Day

In the Christian calendar there are two holidays that follow closely behind Halloween. They are All Saints Day and All Souls Day. On Sunday, we celebrated All Souls Day by lighting a candle and ringing a bell to honor the people from our congregation that had passed on to the

great church in heaven. At the end, the pastor then asked everyone to stand who had lost someone that year that didn't belong to our congregation but had played a role in exemplifying the Christian faith in that persons life. Many, many people rose to their feet. I sat there thinking how lucky I was that I hadn't lost anyone close to me over the past year.

Later that day however, I heard a knock at the door. It was my neighbor fellow. He and his wife have been living there since I was born. In fact, he and his wife fed my dad and sister on Thanksgiving the year that I was born since mom and I were at the hospital tending to more important matters. She always made sure that whenever they were helped with shoveling snow or mowing the lawn or
whatever, that homemade food was promptly sent over. Especially her homemade pierogies.



As usual, Jasmine ran out to greet him and he told me about his daughter who was up visiting and that she had brought her dog. And then he said, "my wife died today." He explained what had happened and that she died in her sleep just a few hours before he came to my door. This couple had been blessed with living on their own, and able to take care of their own home well into their nineties. In past conversations, they told me the story about how they met, that they liked to go dancing and that they had been married for over 60 years. How do you say goodbye to someone that you've loved and lived with for that long? I used to love to see them taking a walk around their yard hand-in-hand seeing what work needed to be done.



Later I thought how appropriate that we had just celebrated All Souls Day in church. She was a devout Byzantine Catholic and lived a long Christian life. She was truly a wonderful soul and will be sorely missed.

William Bouguereau (1895-1905)