Only three months after my mom died, my aunt has now passed away. Once again my dad was there for her and he described the experience as surreal.

I visited the Chicago area to say goodbye and connect with this often blond-haired branch of the family, which is spread out over the Midwest, Washington, and the east coast. This time of year, the area was lush and green and beautiful.

My aunt’s decline was lengthy and involved Parkinson’s disease, plus the grim addition of Parkinson’s dementia that made her forgetful and combative at times. Her cognition, compassion and capability were swallowed up and lost in the swirl of the waters of neurological disaster. However, although tragic, it came at the end of a long life as she was 84. This is much better than my two grandpas and my mom who died in their 50’s and 60’s. By the end in her mercifully lucid days she said very clearly that she accepted her allotted exit and was ready to die.

The ceremonies were once again peaceful and just right. I was struck by the literary language in the service pamphlet, which I am seeing with new eyes and a degree of detachment after sitting through many excruciatingly long and boring Sunday services as a kid, where I occupied myself with other books as well as crayons and markers and scratch paper.

This service’s readings and hymns evoked eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, of commending our sister to our merciful redeemer, and of clothing her with glory even as we gather to comfort each other.

Another passage asked Christ to "grant us that where this world groans in grief and pain, your holy spirit may lead us to bear witness to your light and life." And: "In holy baptism you have knit your chosen people together into one communion of saints."

The wording spoke of Christ destroying the power of death, of removing its sting, of us congregants joining the choirs of earth’s churches and the hosts of heaven in an unending hymn. In the soaring, ultimate language of eternal life, the little paper pamphlet invited us to think of how my aunt’s perishable body must put on imperishability, how her mortal body must put on immortality. It invited heavenly beings to heal the broken in heart, bind up the wounds of the afflicted, calm our troubled spirits, and dispel our doubts and fears.

I listened and read all this with new appreciation. I yearn for the deep connection to community suggested there and for the promise of eternal life, even as I reject the factual falsehoods that are repeated like an oath. And I remain allergic to the magical thinking that is the foundation of organized religion. I wonder how my funeral might look, decades from now, as formal traditions are even less common. Perhaps I need to spell out what I want in a written document (Please do it outdoors and make me into a tree or something).

I will take those passages to heart. I will do my best to "knit my chosen people together," to "dispel the doubts and fears" of others, none of which requires a god to do it for us. This is something we can and should do for each other, every day. In fact, I "bound up the wounds of the afflicted" in a minor sense when my dad had a swallowing/breathing problem and we stayed up late to get it resolved with over-the-counter fixes. No gods needed. Indeed, every day I work to destroy the power of death in tiny but progressive increments.

I related the grieving plains that spread outside Chicagoland in a vast expanse to the Badlands to the northwest where my mom’s spirit lingers. That spirit will greet us there when my immediate family visits for a week to see the places of her birth and youth.

I return always to my dad, who had visited my aunt at just the right time to ease the family into accepting hospice, transition, and death. I thank the three grown children (my cousins) who spoke at the funeral and each brought their unique flavor to their remembrances. I think of her husband, who was fiercely loyal, tenacious, and generous to the end. Perhaps he is a bit of a stubborn asshole, but only when he believe a rule he values has been violated.

The one point that brought me almost to tears was the inurnment (putting the urn in its concrete column) which was outside the church in the fresh grass during a break in the thunderstorm gathering over the plains. I noticed that my uncle’s name was engraved beside that of my departed aunt, in a poignant but sad symbol of the pairing of husband and wife of 50-plus years.

I spoke with family and looked to two cousins who might be a model for me as i approach my 40’s. One especially is a vibrant childfree woman who goes on constant adventure travel, including an upcoming bike trip to the Mesabi Trail of the north woods of Minnesota. The chain of generations has bequeathed me a somewhat chancy genetic mix, but the love and togetherness will ease whatever lies ahead, which is vastly more good than grim.

Before I headed back to Seattle my dad and I visited our old neighborhood in Chicago. He spoke constantly of his departed wife, my mom, but lately it is exclusively with love and appreciation rather than with sadness or regret.