The first email came in at a little after 2:00. The funeral would be at 3:30, maybe 4:00 this afternoon.
The parents are a well-liked young couple here in the community. I don't know her very well, but I've taken some classes from him, and his relentless cheerfulness usually infected the whole group pretty quickly. How could I not go?
And so, as the sun set, about 200 men and women stood out in 0-degree weather trying, and failing, to make sense of it. We can't really know what the little girl's soul's mission was, only that it was accomplished. But life is a gift meant to be lived, and her life was decidedly unlived. And the human mind cannot comprehend that.
What on earth can you say about a two-year-old, who never had a chance to live a meaningful life? The father was dignified beyond belief, speaking of the joy she had brought, and of God's mercy in taking her painlessly.
A few prayers reminding us of God's justice - reminders being necessary, and the alternative being too awful to contemplate -, and then we shuffled back to our cars, and back to our own lives.
