Just around the corner rose a burst of silver star balloons, flying as a pack in the wind while anchored to a faithful friend. Colleagues trickled in, some alone and others in groups. Shouts of recognition, long hugs of true affection years in the making, eager questions about new jobs and different paths. As we made our way onto the playground that had held long afternoons of play for a legion of our community’s children, once again the swings and slides were filled with familiar squeals. “How are my babies?,” I was asked, time and time again by the women who poured into my children as if they were their own.
We gathered to mark an anniversary, one year to the day since cancer robbed us of our beloved Ms. Katy. It was love of a friend and sister that drew us together again, but the unspoken ache of what all we had lost when the Children’s Center closed made the remembrance doubly poignant.
In a cadence filled with wisdom that bore witness to God’s great faithfulness, Ms. A. J. reminded us that April 1, the day Katy was eulogized last year, becomes Easter Sunday this year. Death will not prevail, she proclaimed. And somehow, impossible as it may seem, a spirit of resurrection moved within and among that playground congregation. Undoubtedly, wounds remain. Grief over substantial loss of friend and community lingers. Scars of anger still mar us all. We did not arrive unblemished after what has been. But I can testify that the same Love that plunged into a tomb to bring new life in the deadest of places is the Love that filled our circle last night, unwilling to let what crucified us have the final word.
Final scribbles of prayers and love to Ms. Katy were written on balloons, and together we counted to three and let them go. The sun hung lazily in that great expanse of sky, wide and ready to receive them: once a pack, now scattered and released, ready to rise again.
Together in the work of Love,
Pastor Emily
Photos shared with permission from Amanda McCann and Amy McClure.