Medlyn
Sometimes you just have to laugh and roll with the punches. This phrase came to mind several weeks ago when we had the interment ceremony for my mother who died in 2021.
Due to my mother’s wishes, she was sent to Indiana University to donate her body for science. She was quite pleased that she was saving money for my brothers and I.
I was mildly amused as I knew how much she had in the bank. But on the day she died, off she went. What we thought would be a six-month process turned into 18 months.
Finally she returned home, after coordinating our schedules, along with the Episcopal Church in Bloomington we were set to go.
The day was as nice as a February in Bloomington can be. I must confess that I do not go to Kirkwood Avenue at all now, where the church is located, so I was rather stunned to see that at Nicks, the epicenter of all things IU, they were flying a Purdue flag. How things have changed, it seems.
So as I walked in, I exhaled loudly. It was a response to my just wanting to get this over with and the fact that I had a strange sense that something was about to go wrong. Even the priest asked me if I was okay. I assured him that I was, there was no emotion, it was just something that needed to be done.
Earlier that day as I got dressed, I eschewed by normal dressing like John Fetterman in my jeans and sweatshirt, for a sweater my dad owned and dress slacks and dress shoes.
I always carry two things with me. A lighter, even though I do not smoke and a Leatherman multi-tool. The lighter is in case I get stranded in the woods and need to start a fire, in the unlikely event that somehow I get stranded in the woods, and the Leatherman is just practical.
But that morning, I decided, why did I need to bring a Leatherman to an interment ceremony? A few moments later, I realized why.
When my father died in 2006, he was cremated and laid to rest in the crèche in the urn that my niece had made and one that would hold both my parents ashes when the time came.
In 2006 someone gave us some advice that we needed to seal the urn in case of moisture. So my brother and I went and got some caulk and then sealed up the urn. We forgot about what we had done, until the Great Flood of Kirkwood a few years ago that flooded the church. My brothers and I congratulated each other on our foresight as my father, despite being sealed into the crèche, his urn would not have moisture flood inside of it.
We had forgotten what we had done until the ceremony. Then as the priest attempted to open the urn he turned to us and said, “It appears to be sealed with something, does anyone have a knife?”
His first funeral was my mother’s. I am sure that nowhere in divinity school was this topic covered. Perhaps it needs to be.
Then it all came back to us and why I needed a multi-tool with me.
Minutes later, as we found the sexton who had a dremel tool, we opened the urn to a fan fair of sparks and smoke.
My father, despite having a PhD from the University of Michigan and being a professor at IU, had a rather salty language. Not the words we hear today but he did mange to give Jesus a middle name of H. So when he got mad it would usually be along the terms of, “Jesus H Christ, what have you kids done today?” I never did learn what the H stood for. One of the mysteries of life.
As my brother worked to open the Urn, I could just see my parents laughing at how stupid their sons were.
Being the Medlyns, this is not the end of the story with my mother, as there are still remains that need to be scattered in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Hopefully my brother, when he does so, will remember the wind direction, so he does not get a face full of his mother, like he did with his father so many years ago.
Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and laugh.
Mark C. Medlyn of Brown County is an occasional community columnist. A graduate of Bloomington High School South and Indiana University, he has worked as a police officer and an adjunct college instructor, authored a textbook on the Illinois vehicle code, and became a substitute teacher in Illinois upon his retirement from full-time law enforcement in 2007. He and his wife, a retired university instructor, have been Brown County property owners since 2015.
