We had such wonderful caretakers at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church; that is, the custodial staff. They kept the church sparkling clean and bright, and did so with a faithfulness that was a marvel to behold. They saw it as a labor of love, and although they were usually behind the scenes, they made the scenes lovely. I believe they knew how highly I thought of them and how much I appreciated the work they did. Any church would have been blessed to have them on staff.
The Memorial Garden, as I have said in my last post, is a beautiful outdoor garden chapel designed for the committal of the ashes of church members. It was completed during the decade I served there. In the red brick walls that surround the garden are niches somewhat like post office boxes, into which the cremains can find their final resting place. A specially designed tool opens the front surface of each niche.
Soon after the Memorial Garden was completed, one of the caretakers came to speak with me, confidentially. He had been told in no uncertain terms that it would be his job to open the front of the niche and place the ashes in the niche whenever there was a committal. He then told me that he literally could not do it. That he had a horror of handling dead bodies even if these were only the ashes thereof. He had tried to explain this to his supervisor on the church staff and was told that it did not matter, he had to do it anyway. He was truly afraid he would lose his job over this very real fear being in conflict with a new duty added to his job description.
I at once said, “Do not worry. I will do it for you. No one else needs to know. Whenever you need it done, just let me know.” I could see that his sense of relief was both immediate and great. And it was something I could do, in a tangible way, to say how much I appreciated him. From that time forward, that is exactly what we did.
To this day, I wonder at the attitude that would have insisted that he do something that was so unsettling, and frankly, so unnecessary for him to do… Don’t you?
So when I came to Wekiva Presbyterian Church and in time we created our own Memorial Garden (a lovely space in the church courtyard for reflection and renewal as well as for placing the ashes of our loved ones), I said from the very beginning that I would place the ashes of those whose committal services I did there, in the Garden, personally. This is something I do after the committal, when no one else is present, in a dignified way, with a quiet prayer.
