In memoriam
Helen and Walter Vonnegut
January 22, 2013
Anacortes, Washington
Who would’ve thought, but time itself, that some day I, named ‘Time,’ will be eulogizing the very same two people who brought me to this church that looks like an upside down ship now sailing in an upside down world charting the seas of time—its passengers changed, its passage is same. Its stern trails disturbed nostalgia of the years gone by, its bow parting the fogs of tomorrow that surrounds.
The Relevance of Time
In the physical absence of Helen and Walter Vonnegut I find Anacortes empty, but it is their spiritual presence to which I am drawn here. I find solace in sharing that numinous space and find comfort in knowing that it will always nurture my soul.
Beyond veracity and virtue that characterized them both and between restrained and expressive smiles that distinguished them as individuals, they modeled parenthood to my teen years and challenged my adult life as a parent.
The mirror of time reflects images that play with our conscious awareness. Time wraps itself around our lives and etches images we can not comprehend. The presence of time comes to relevance in the passing of life—an opportunity presents itself. An opportunity defined by the amount of attention we pay to time instead of being wrapped in its flow.
In some such opportunities, like now, we wake into an awareness where life has evaporated and we look for its imprint in every nook and cranny and in every crack and crevice of time. We find the fingerprints of life lived and still living. We notice that on the canvas of time the hand of destiny is still painting us in their similitudes through the hues and shades of being and becoming.
When we reflect on their lives, we see ourselves being reflected. We realize that they are not gone, but live through us in the continuum. There, a realization dawns on us and we wake up—not from a repose in the physical, but in spiritual consciousness. It is there when time makes demands of us.
- In every moment that we have shared life with theirs,
- in every moment that blends with the continuity of our thinking thoughts,
- in every moment that a hesitated pause seeks permanence in the temporality of life,
- and yes indeed, in every moment that is a cross-current of numinosity flowing between our being and their having become the sparks of divine essence in the cosmic whirl of the Oneness of Being the multidimensionality of a lived life awaits to be cherished.
Think them, thank them, feel them, love them for they are us—every one of us.
May theirs be the abode of bliss.