Every family needs a sky pilot. This is the handle we gave Chaplains in Vietnam. I don’t know if the nomenclature has survived in today’s military. It is Spring and a time when our thoughts quite naturally turn to birth, life, new beginnings . . . and death. My son-in-law did a tour in Kuwait, commanding the military mortuary there for 9 months. He more than anyone I know came face to face with death. My son, James also became intimate with death a couple of years ago. I was surrounded by death in Southeast Asia for 360 days in 1965 and 1966 and I wouldn’t ever want a do over. So much for what I want or don’t want.
As I sit here at my second story window on this beautiful Easter weekend, looking out at the snow capped peaks of the Wasatch Front . . . . the trees beginning to turn green with buds . . . . my bee hives becoming more vigorous every day, I am struck with the reality of omnipresent death in a way not felt since I turned 21 in Phu Loi, South Vietnam, living in a tent while flying day and night combat missions over hostile beauty. Yes, Vietnam was and is a beautiful land. Death, however was lurking everywhere.
Northern Utah is a beautiful land. Death, however, throws shadow over the beauty of this day, laying in wait for a careless act or omission. I’ll never know how close I may have come during my infrequent errands outside the wire these last weeks. But it is out there as sure as it was in 1966 when some 58,000 American men and women died half way around the world in a tiny mash-up of rice paddies, mountains, triple canopy jungle and rivers in a conflict seemingly with out purpose. Today, the pandemic death toll is rising to meet that number, and it is world wide! And it is in my town and yours. And we search our souls for any reason or purpose. Our true colors are being exposed. Most of us will live through this. I am old. Will I be spared? Food for thought.
The honey bee dies after about 7 weeks of work for the common interest of the colony. I am struck by the image of a bee in flight, departing or returning to the hive, and dropping dead en-route, falling to the ground, or my front porch as many do. No warning or worry about it. Perhaps instinct foreshadowed the urgency of her mission is some way, I do not know. How blessed would it be to not worry.
Here is what I do know, as expressed in this uplifting poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye titled Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep. Today, looking out my second story window at my town in the valley of these magnificent mountains and listening to an audio book about Army pilots in Vietnam, the author mentioned this poem. It calmed my heart . . . . brought my faith back into focus such as it is. Food for thought.
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow. I am the gentle showers of rain, I am the fields of ripening grain. I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the starshine of the night. I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room. I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I do not die.
This poem is in the public domain.
Rusty Bent Nail 