Last month I officiated the
memorial of Ed, the father of my friend, Clarice. He and Clarice’s mom, Midge, had been married
for more than fifty years. I know that
this is a wedding blog and not a funeral blog BUT since the memorial I’ve
become more sensitized to the vows, “in sickness and in health, until death do
us part.”
A wedding naturally looks to the
Future, yet maybe one’s vows will only fully be understood at the end of one’s
life. In prepping for the memorial, I
rummaged around various quotes I’ve collected over time that are funeral
appropriate (I’m not morbid – it’s just that I’ve done a fair number of
funerals/memorials over the years). In
looking over some of these quotes, I realize that they actually could help in
the writing of vows. . . hmm. . . hope this doesn’t sound creepy!
Here are 6 quotes to help you reflect on just what it is you and your
partner are vowing to each other:
1. You
don’t get to choose how you’re going to die.
Or when.
You can only decide how you’re going to
live. Now.
Joan Baez
How do you and your partner want to live? Have you talked about the particulars and the
dreams? Have you figured out a strategy
to make your wants and desires and dreams help you live – and not just exist?
2. Still –
in a way – nobody sees a flower – really.
It is so small –
we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to
have a friend takes time.
Georgia O’Keeffe
Have you and your partner founds ways to make time
for and with each other? Do you “see”
each other in those times or do you feel taken for granted?
3. What do
we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for others?
George Eliot
How do you make life less difficult for your
partner? How does your partner make life
less difficult for you?
4.
It costs so much to be fully human that there are very few who have the
enlightenment or the courage to pay the price.
One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to
the risk of living with both arms open.
One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of
existence. One has to count doubt and
darkness as the cost of knowing. One
needs a will stubborn in conflict but apt always to total acceptance of every
consequence of living and dying.
Shoes Of The Fisherman
Morris West
Are you and your partner committed to
becoming “fully human”? How do you give
each other the courage?
These next two quotes mention “God” – but even if you are not a
believer, I think they can challenge you in your commitment to each other. . .
5. When I stand before God at the end of my
life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could
say,
"I used
everything you gave me.”
Erma Bombeck
How do you help your partner develop and us their
talents? How does your partner help you
develop and use your talents?
6. When we
die and go to heaven, and we meet our Maker, our Maker is not going to say to
us, “Why didn’t you become a messiah?”
Why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such?” The only thing we’re going to be asked at
that precious moment is, “why didn’t you become ‘you’?”
Eli Wiesel
What does it mean for “you” to become “you”? For your partner to become him or her
self? How can you help each other in
that great, ultimate undertaking?
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