SARAH’S GARDEN

[This is a story I wrote last night for today's  Children’s Mass - the 5th Sunday in Lent B, March 25, 2012. The story is a reflection on John 12: 23-26 - the Gospel for this Sunday]

Sarah and Sally - cousins - both 7 years of age - both an only child - both their grandmother’s only grandkids - went to their grandmother Sandra’s funeral.

It was their first death. It was their first time in a funeral home.

They had never seen a body in a casket before. Separately they went up to casket with their parents for a prayer. Mom and dad had their arms on their daughter’s shoulders in case this was too scary.

They stood there for a moment looking at the flowers all around the casket. Then they began to look at their grandmother - who had been sick for the last month or so - so they heard the “death” word.

They saw their grandmother holding a rosary in her hands. They both wondered about that - seeing their grandmother with that same rosary in her hands when she was living - but why would you put her rosary in her hands when she was dead?

After going to the casket, they turned around to face the room filled with people - who had come and kept coming into the funeral parlor.

They were both very quiet - watching everything and everyone. They were both sort of shy - when it was something they never did before.

So they just stood there when people went up to their moms - who were sisters - and people would say, “Sympathy!” “Condolences!” and “Hope and prayers you are doing okay.” They didn’t understand what the words “Sympathy” and “Condolences” meant.

They found the two hours in the afternoon and then the two hours in the evening in the funeral home very, very, long. They noticed everything - the tears and the hugs, the love and the hopes they were okay.

They realized their grandmother knew a lot of people.

The next morning at the funeral home - Sarah and Sally - got to see the moment the undertaker closed the casket - after their moms and dads stood there very quietly and then they got in a big, big car that took them to the church for the funeral - with grandma in her casket in another car - which they followed. At Mass Sarah and Sally got to bring the gifts up to the priest.

They liked their grandma. They knew she had been sick - for quite some time now. They understood some of that as 7 year olders. They knew people die. Watching their moms dealing with the death of their mom helped them to realized it was much harder losing a mom than losing a bird or a cat or a dog or seeing a flower die.

After the Mass - at the cemetery - they were asked to hold baskets that held little packets of seeds. They were asked to give them to those who were there for the final blessing at the cemetery.

Both also had their pocketbooks - because pocketbooks were in style and it was just after Easter. Sarah noticed Sally was sneaking packets of flower seeds into her pocketbook.

“I wonder why,” she thought. “I wonder why?”

After the ceremony, after the prayers and the blessings in the cemetery, the undertaker said to Sarah and Sally, “I see that you have some packets of flower seeds in your baskets. Well you can keep them. Make sure you get some good flowers from them.”

At the luncheon after the cemetery, Sally said to Sarah, “How many packets of seeds did you get?” Sarah counted hers, “Seven!”

Sally said, “Well, I got 17!” And Sally said it with a smirk more than with a smile.

Sarah didn’t know what all this meant. She didn’t know what Sally was up to - or why she was doing what she was happening. It was something new - something she didn’t understand. It was something different. So she said nothing.

She had seen kids at school and at parties showing off - and sort of trying to look better than other kids. She asked herself, “Was this what her cousin Sally was trying to say and do to her? To look better than her? Was she trying to say to Sarah, ‘I’m better than you - because I got 17 packets of seeds and you only got 7’?”

She was still thinking about this about a month later - so she asked her mom about what Sally said and did. She didn’t want to be a snitch - because kids made fun of snitches at school. Still Sarah also said to her mom, “I saw her sneak a handful of packets of seeds into her pocketbook when nobody was looking.”

Her mom listened and simply said, “Sarah, don’t worry about it. She’ll be okay.” However, her mom began thinking about all this. But she didn’t say, “Sarah, in life, try not to judge people. You never know why people do what they do.”

In July Sarah and her mom and dad went to Sally’s house - for a Fourth of July cookout. Sally and Sarah were playing with dolls in Sally’s room and Sarah spotted the 17 packets of flower seeds on Sally’s bureau. Sally spotted Sarah spotting the 17 packets of seeds and said, “I loved it when the undertaker told us we could keep the flower seeds. It reminds me of grandma.”

Sarah simply said, “Oh, I miss her too.”

On a Saturday in August, Sally and her parents came over to Sarah’s house and they were sitting in the living room at first - till Sarah’s mom said, “Sarah, why don’t you show Sally your flower garden.”

Both girls went out back - along with Sally’s parents - and there in Sarah’s garden - there they were - about 100 bright, beautiful, all kinds of colored flowers - growing and flourishing in Sarah’s garden.

And as Sally saw all that two things happened: tears and a tearing of her heart - because she knew then and there - what she would learn many years later in church - when she heard the words of Jesus, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.”