POV Marie

13 days, that was the number of days that have passed since my brother died. The sadness of his loss has not left our minds and today is the day of his funeral. The weather was so gray that even he seemed to be mourning his loss. As my mother, father and our youngest brother Yan, we prepared for his funeral. Yesterday's wake had been dull for good reason as it was a reunion for the death of a child who had been born sick. Of which we had the hope that he would recover from his illness, but unfortunately :

"God the father had decided otherwise and brought back to him in paradise." 

This was what my grandmother and mother liked to repeat as if it would cure their pain or bring my brother back. As if that would justify and legitimize his death, suffering from the beginning to the end.

That he is now in heaven and that it is for the best, no, the best would have been for him to stay with us! How can one affirm things that are not based on anything but faith, hope or rather denial. This same denial pushes us to imagine dreams to support misery and pain, making us believe in an illusory happiness after death. Illusions to justify the pain suffered in the earthly realm that will be rewarded with an idyllic place where no suffering exists.

God a father? No, certainly not, a father is supposed to take care and save his children and not let them sink into need and distress. My brother who smiled for us until the end, never deserved such a thing so fuck God!

"Because God is but an illusion created by the fear of men." (Marie)

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the soul of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of social conditions from which the spirit is excluded. It is the opium of the people." Karl Marx

We walked towards the church accompanied by family, friends and acquaintances with the car carrying my brother's coffin under a cloudy sky that continued to fill up little by little. We arrived in front of the church, in front of this big white building and so high that we looked like insignificant beings. The people then took place in the church while the close family remained outside waiting for the people to take place in it for the entry of the coffin.

Then once everyone was settled and ready it was time to enter the church accompanied by the priest and his altar boys while family members held the casket on their shoulders. My father, mother and brothers carrying the casket, accompanied by songs that echoed heavily in the large building.

- You have been immersed

In the death of Jesus :

May the death of Jesus

Take you to the Father

And we will see you again in his house!

- You have been marked

With the cross of Jesus:

May the cross of Jesus

Carry you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

- You have been grafted

On the life of Jesus :

May the life of Jesus

Take you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

- You have been burned

By the Spirit of Jesus:

May the Spirit of Jesus

Take you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

- You have been washed

By the blood of Jesus :

May the blood of Jesus

Take you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

- You have been nourished

By the body of Jesus:

May the body of Jesus

Take you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

- You wanted to serve

For the love of Jesus:

May the love of Jesus

Take you to the Father.

And we will see you again in his house!

A song of great and intense magnificence and emotion causing me great resentment towards God but also infinite sadness. Trying to hold back my tears, I realized that my brother's farewell was beginning. As I stood behind them with my grandmother we walked down the aisle to the altar with everyone around us looking at us all standing. Until the casket was finally placed on the altar where the priest sprinkled it with holy water and then my parents lit candles while one was given to me. We then placed them all around the casket while a prayer accompanied us.

O Lord, I come to you, I come to you

I seek you, my God,

O Lord, hear me, hear me

I hope for you, my God.

1 - You, Lord, are the life

I was nothing

You gave me life

I am your child

2 - You, Lord, are love

I was lost

You, you are all tenderness

I am looking for your hand.

3 - You, Lord, you are forgiveness

I am a sinner,

You listen and you forgive

oh, my God, I implore you

4 - You, Lord, you are light

I do not see

Your word enlightens us

do, Lord, that I may see.

After that there were many readings of biblical texts, psalms and gospels by relatives and the priest. Which seemed to last for hours and deepened my pain and resentment even more. Teachers, friends or distant relatives telling the difficulties of Kevin during his life but still keeping the smile and the courage of each day of my mother and my father. Then came the homily of the priest :

"Life is not lost my friends, it is transformed. In fact, we can say that the Christian who believes in Jesus Christ does not really die.  « Life is not destroyed, it is transformed ». Listen carefully to this beautiful text so enlightening for us : « ... for those who believe in you, Lord, life is not destroyed, it is transformed and when their stay on earth comes to an end, they already have an eternal home in heaven ». One can always ask what this home will be like. It is a legitimate question. But, in spite of all the research that is possible today, we cannot answer it. As Christians, we are fortunate to have an answer which is that of our faith, which St. Paul summarizes in his letter to the Christians of Rome: "None of us lives for himself, and none of us dies for himself: if we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. In our life and in our death, we belong to the Lord." (Romans 14:7).

"Why should our mortal life belong to an immortal being, to a being who makes us experience a life of suffering." I thought, the priest's words unbearable to me.

"What does this mean? It means that the life we have, we received it as a gift, as a gift, it does not belong to us, we are not the owners. It comes from God through our parents and it continues with God after our death. This is what it is all about « live for the Lord » and « die for the Lord ». Our life belongs to God." (Priest)

"As a gift? No. Life for some is a curse, a poisoned gift and it would have been preferable the meanders of existence! To live for the Lord? What nonsense, the most important thing is to live for oneself!" (Marie)

"In French this is what we say without realizing it when we say "adieu"(Goodbye) to someone. This word 'Adieu' can be written in two words 'A' and 'Dieu, in english to God. Pope Francis made a beautiful commentary on this word during a homily. I share it with you. To God I entrust my soul; to God I entrust my history; to God I entrust my people; to God I entrust everything. May the dead and risen Christ send us the Holy Spirit, so that we may learn this word, so that we may learn to say it, with all our strength: the last word, To God..." (Priest)

"Then I don't want to say goodbye" (Marie)

So during this homily the bitterness had not ceased to rise in me, whereas the mass was now ending as it had begun. The coffin was leaving under the melancholic and sad songs.

On the threshold of his house, Our Father awaits you, And God's arms will open for you (Refrain)

1 - When the doors of life open before us, In God's peace we shall see you again. 

2 - By the blood of Jesus Christ, By his death on the cross, The forgiveness of God will deliver you. 

3 - The water that gave you life will wash your eyes, And your eyes will see the salvation of God. 

4 - When the last day comes At God's call, you will rise and walk. 

5 - As in your first morning the sun will shine, And you will enter into the joy of God

Now walking the streets of our city in a procession dressed in black and white draped in a deathly silence. Until we arrived at the entrance of the cemetery after a walk under this gray sky. As we entered we all passed a large black gate with white walls and on top of that gate was crucified Christ.

A Christ that I looked at intently as I discovered for the first time what a cemetery looked like to the young child that I was. A place with a heavy, sad and sinister atmosphere, littered with stones where the names of people I didn't know and would never know were engraved. The only thing connecting us was death, for soon my brother would be laid to rest there too. While everyone was now standing in silence, the coffin was placed on a high stand with Kévin's picture on it. The Pastor after many minutes finally spoke to us.

"Words fail us Lord, we are in trial, accept our silence as a prayer for Kévin whom you know and love. His path now leads him to you: welcome him in the clarity and peace of your Kingdom. And may your Love be for us a light on the road, until the day when you will reunite us to you for the ages of the Centuries" (Priest)

 "His love did not save him!" (Marie)

"My friends, we are gathered here together in pain and sorrow to pay tribute to a young child who was taken by disease. The death of a child taken by disease, you may wonder why God would do such a thing" (Priest)

"For he does not exist!" (Marie)

"For sickness is an evil, for God only wants us to be well." (Priest)

"If he wanted our good so much why not eradicate it." (Marie)

"And this evil was caused by men through original sin and now it is a trial that all men must overcome." (Priest)

"My brother never did anything wrong why should he have to go through this kind of trial!" (Marie)

"It is an ordeal for the patient as well as for his relatives, who can only watch without doing anything while seeing their child suffer. And sometimes, the disease takes away and confronts the relatives with another ordeal, that of mourning the death. But the ordeal can overwhelm us, but it should not lock us up in revolt or bitterness, but open us up to hope." (Priest)

A lightning bolt suddenly melted from the sky in a big way, startling the crowd with good reason because lightning bolts in our time are now also synonymous with the appearance of portals. Then after a few good seconds the priest spoke again:

"We will now hear some words of Job, this man so deeply tried, who had lost everything. But in his misfortune, he still had faith and hope. And it is also for us who suffer many misfortunes a model on which to model our faith. In those days Job spoke up and said: 

"I would like to have what I am about to say written down, to have my words engraved on bronze with the iron chisel and the punch, to have them carved in the rock forever: I know that my deliverer lives, and that in the end he will stand up on the dust of the dead with my body, I will stand upright, and with my eyes of flesh I will see God. I shall see him, I in person, and, if my eyes look upon him, he shall be no more a stranger."

"It is not easy to say a prayer for a child's funeral, for the death of one's child, and yet this is what Kevin's mother decided to do. Now we will listen to the words of Kevin's mother.

The pastor then gave way to my mother who spoke with her eyes already sore and her body shaking as she had not spoken at the mass.

"My dear child, since your birth you have never stopped fighting, yet in this terrible ordeal you have never stopped smiling in spite of the pain. You are an example for all of us of perseverance and love and I can't understand why the Lord called you back to himself so soon. And in a selfish wish, I would have liked you to keep fighting even though you would have suffered even more." (Mother)

Another flash of lightning then melted the sky as small drops began to fall.

"I would like to say you a last goodbye and leave this earth in peace by reading you a poem:

My child, my dearest child, from the moment you were in my womb.

I made a promise to you, to make you exist, to give you life.

A promise that I kept, and from the moment you were born, you filled my existence of joy.

Remembering your warmth when you suckled my breast.

Of your little laughs and smiles that brightened each of my days.

Unfortunately, I was not able to give you a healthy body.

And this is where I, as a mother, failed and broke my promise.

And I apologize for that, because you were a flower that just wanted to bloom.

I hope you will forgive me, because don't worry, I will come and find you.

So that once again, you can illuminate my life as you always did.

Waiting for this time, until death brings us together.

I will never stop loving you.

Then it was time to close the casket and put it in the ground and say goodbye to his face, the rain now falling completely like a sheet accompanying our sadness. As the casket was lowered the people burst into tears and I too wept, while the pastor spoke and the rain intensified.

"Lord, we turn our gaze to you at the hour when this face that is dear to us disappears: grant him, Lord, eternal rest, grant him to see you face to face and strengthen our hope of seeing him again in your presence. And may the unending light shine in his eyes for ever and ever. Amen." (Priest)

The coffin now down, each one took a flower to throw as a last farewell, each one passing by one by one throwing a white flower. And with each flower thrown the rain accompanying us became stronger and stronger as well as the words of the priest trying to fight against it to be heard.

My mother then threw her flower and fell into the water in tears not being able to support the sorrow any more her sobs them managing to pierce the sound of the rain. My father picked her up and snuggled her against him under the deluge of water while I was the last one to throw a flower. Me, the 9 year old who was afraid of the dark and the storm but my brother always holding me. Looking at the coffin in that deep hole where my brother was I looked at that flower meaning to say goodbye. No To God, a god to whom I don't want to say anything even a goodbye.

I then dropped this beautiful white rose and as it fell I wished for something:  

"I don't want the world to turn without you, I don't want the sun to burn without you. I want to see you again the only being I could pray to and hold the one who will always take care of me my one and only God my brother." (Marie)

At that moment it was no longer a wish but a prayer which was followed by a black lightning melting the sky in a great and terrifying thud hitting where the coffin was. It threw many people, including me, several meters away. Then I stood up and saw the faces and bodies of those around me petrified with fear as this gigantic black lightning bolt pierced the sky and the earth. 

Then people found the strength to walk away in panic while I continued to watch. That's when I felt a presence inside that flash of light, while my skin now had goose bumps. My gaze was then plunged, as if sucked by this blackness and I then saw like eyes observing me giving me cold sweats. My body and my mind were tetanized and I heard a voice straight out of hell that made my body tremble with each syllable.

"And so by this first decent into the abyss, the black work continues its course." (???)

Then the lightning dispersed, opening up the clouds and bringing back the blue sky and clouds like a new dawn. The lightning had left only a large crater and everyone was now terrified to go and look at what was there. Yet I was strangely attracted despite the fear, because the lightning had fallen on my brother's grave. And I wanted to see, so I looked for my mother and found her standing next to my father, so I walked towards her.

I looked at her and I could see the fear but also this curiosity, so I took her hand and looked into her eyes. Understanding, she squeezed my hand and we walked towards the place, watched by crowd in a silence broken by each of our steps on the water covering the ground. It was as if we were walking on water, each step an act of faith, a walk into the unknown, a walk into the night in the daytime.

So when we arrived at the edge of the crater, it was filled with water because of the past deluge but the craziest thing was this young boy who was standing on the water. Who glanced at us with tears streaming down his face and his mouth trembling.

"Mom, Marie..." He said with a trembling voice before collapsing into the water.

Without thinking, we ran towards him, our feet sinking into the water and slowing our progress. And when we finally reached him and were able to hug him, the unreal became real or the impossible became possible.

But it didn't matter as long as I could feel the warmth of his body as his pale complexion became clear again.

People hearing the crying then moved closer to the crater to see the surreal scene that was unfolding before their eyes. Some even got down on their knees to pray even imploring heaven.

"It's a miracle!" They shouted incredulously and euphorically.

The impossible having become possible, the illusion having prevailed over reality, yes, this was the definition of a miracle, being for men their source of light in the darkness.

-----

While the flower that had fallen into indifference had taken on a black color.

When I see him, I fall at his feet as if I were dead. But he puts his right hand on me and says, "Do not be afraid! I am the first and the last, I am the Living. I was dead, but now I am alive forever and have power over death and the world of the dead. Revelation 1:17 / Revelation 1:18