A nomenclature of grief: Singing through a friend's funeral

Congregants shouldered tightly together at the Rev. Dr. Chester Brown’s funeral, except for the man in the pew in front of me who sat so far away from his wife it could hardly be called sitting together. A small nation could have fit between them.

During the prelude, J.S. Bach gathered us grazing sheep safely in.

Hampton Baptist Church, where Chester pastored for nearly 40 years, was packed.

I had attended only a few funerals here growing up in Virginia.

Bret Godfrey’s parents’ funeral was here. I remember singing “Morning Has Broken.” Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey had been killed in a Navy helicopter crash. Our community was exhausted with grief.

Chester officiated the funeral. I remember him laughing from the pulpit and how everyone laughed with him. I was astonished by what release laughter could bring. I was 15 and unaccustomed to death’s strange rituals.

Summer vacation had just begun.

The world we knew had ended.

Twenty years later, I returned for Aunt Angeline’s service. I was invited to eulogize and spoke of the doves released at her son’s recent wedding, of the darting shadows they carved as they flew away, and, by extension, of the wild nature of God’s Spirit casting unpredictable shadows that make us mortals shield our eyes. I spoke of Angeline’s brave smile.

My dad and his siblings grew up here, ran through these hallways, learned hymns I know by heart. Chester officiated my grandparents’ funerals. And Great Aunt Rose. And Uncle Chuck.

At Chester’s funeral, I sat in the balcony under low eaves. When I rested my head against the wall, the curve of my skull snapped neatly in the crown molding. I fit structurally. This was the most intimate I’d ever been with a ceiling, and it was astonishingly clean, not a speck of dust, no cobwebs.

Funny the things you notice when your heart is skipping beats and the air is choked with ghosts.

I arrived early and sat alone until Godfrey siblings appeared — Jill and her husband, Bret and his wife. We jammed together in the short pew. We are in our sixties, but it wasn’t hard to imagine being teenagers again, told to shush for giggling.

Hymns, scripture, and stained light settled like halos on the bowed heads of people below us.

Chester’s wife spoke briefly.

“You helped raise our children. If you don’t like what they’ve become, it’s partly your fault.”

Laughter came easily.

“The right people,” she said, “led our children in the right direction at the right time.”

Son Edward cut a handsome figure in his late father’s pulpit. He delivered a eulogy replete with laughter, a fishing story, and the testimony of generational family love. This church was home. He was looking into the eyes of his people.

The choir sang a Rutter anthem, and they sang it like friends giving away their hearts — which made it shine.

What was the secret, people wanted to know, of Chester’s long pastorate? “You’ve got to love your people,” he is purported to have said. “And when you don’t, you’ve got to fake it.”

The congregation roared.

We stood at the benediction and remained standing for Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”

The Opus 146 Zimmer and Sons pipe organ did a formidable job with the nicely prepared choir. Many of us know this song like we know certain Christmas carols. It’s hummable and we know some words, though in no particular order.

At least halfway through the Chorus, the hallelujahs start breaking up — like water over a high falls. This is by Handel’s careful design. Different vocal ranges stagger into the score at different moments, singing and re-singing that magnificent word, which means, “Praise the Lord.”

The song begins easily enough, but when harmonies and timing syncopate and dilapidate, it’s like white light pouring into a prism exploding into a riot of color.

Even with score in hand, there’s something about this song that feels improvisational, like Ella’s scatting and Gabriel’s horn-blowing. This is when the song gets beautiful and hilarious, amateurs of glory attempting to sing like Pavarotti.

The chorus is designed to sound a little like a train wreck even when it’s sung correctly. What we lacked in perfection, this congregation and choir made up for in spirit. We sang loudly. We didn’t drag as funereal etiquette sometimes insists. We sang like a people who knew ginger ale punch awaited them at the reception.

We poured ourselves into the singing, swaying like sequoias, making a joyful noise.

I suspect everyone felt something like how I felt: sad and glad and flummoxed by life’s bittersweet ache. Our song was lamentation, a word of thanks and praise, and a raised fist protesting the God whose ways are inscrutable.

We scrutinized God, nevertheless, through hot tears and by singing this song.

Hallelujahs were everywhere, crashing into one another like rodeo clowns.

There’s a moment on hot summer afternoons when wind chimes quiver in humid breezes and clouds can’t make up their mind to storm or to scatter. One is conscious of great, coiled power.

That’s how my body trembled at Chester’s funeral.

The finality of it all was sinking in.

A chapter was ending. To leave this sanctuary, would be to turn the page.

So, we stayed.

We sang.

The air around us roiled with song, was antagonized by that muscular organ. Everything dies at last and even 93-years-old is too soon?

Yes, too soon.

We weren’t ready. We follow our pioneers closely, borne upon time’s swelling rapids. We aren’t afraid, exactly, but we also aren’t ready.

Hence our song.

We sang the last notes with all our might.