I'll Fly Away

 

And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove!

for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

— Psalm 55:6

 

Last week, we attended a funeral for Joan Alberg of Kansas City, the mother of my husband's best friend. The songs, the stories, the Kansas sunflowers at the altar . . . wish they could all be like that.

 

An hour before, the pastor motioned one of the adult daughters over to show her something very special. A rainbow had formed from a ray of light shining through a high church window onto the open Bible on the lectern, with Joan's funeral program on top. The pastor said that had happened only once before in her entire career. The family took it as a sign.

 

At the service, they told us that, the day before the much-loved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had died, she had been moved to a rather utilitarian hospital room. The two adult daughters were putting up a bulletin board with dozens of get-well cards, to cheer the place up. But Joan called them over to her bed. "Take them down," she said, kindly but firmly. "I'm going home Saturday."

 

They thought she meant home to her house. But Saturday was the next day . . . and she died, right at dawn. They took her statement about going home as a sign, too.

 

The final song was the romantic 1940s tune, "I'll Be Seeing You." You know:

 

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places. . . .

 

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new,
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

 

The tenor nailed the high notes, and the saxophone's mellow accompaniment filled me with compassion for the widower. He was alone now after 54 years of marriage. What must that feel like? I bawled into my tissue. Later, at the reception, another white-haired man approached him, a lifelong friend. They embraced. Mr. Alberg's face reddened and crumpled, and I overheard him say, "You think you're ready for this. . . ."

 

But the Alberg family has a deep, wide, strong faith, that fairly glistens, like the wheatfields of Kansas. They are committed Christians who credit prayer for getting them through their share of bumps on the road of life. That's why they couldn't really be sad, at that funeral. They had no doubt that their loved one was now in heaven with Jesus. And they had a special way of showing the rest of us.

 

Steve has an unusual hobby: breeding and racing messenger pigeons. We've kidded him about his "stud pigeons" and listened to stories about races his birds have won all around the country.

 

As the reception was ending, Steve invited everyone to come outside the church to witness a mass release of the birds. They would easily navigate their way home to their rural roost on Steve's acreage 20 minutes away.

 

Steve brought three or four cages. Inside were over 100 racing pigeons, large and white with a little gray. He took out birds for his two sisters and dad, and kept one for himself. The three adult children were to release their birds with the others, and his dad was to hang on to his and release it when the other birds were in flight.

 

We all gathered 'round on the church lawn. To her delight, Steve assigned our Maddy, 8, to unhinge the cages on his command. With a loud flutter, the dozens of birds rose to the sky and started circling, circling, high overhead, getting their bearings in that mystical way that we humans still do not entirely understand.

 

Then Mr. Alberg let the last one go - the one that represented the love of his life. That bird joined the others. As one, they flew off to the southwest. We were left only with our gasps and smiles, looking skyward, many of us with tears streaming.

 

 

 

 

Those dove-like birds were like the spirits of loved ones gone before, that she had now joined.

 

Another old song came to mind, a triumphant one. I thought of the medical challenges Joan had faced these past few months, how bravely she'd fought, how peacefully she had passed at dawn's early light, and how comforting it was to her family to think of her being in a place of rest and joy:

 

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away;
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away!

 

I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away.
When I die -- Hallelujah! By and by -- I'll fly away!

 

Farewell, faithful one. Back here in all the old familiar places, we'll miss you.

 

But one day, it'll be our turn to fly . . . and we'll be seeing you. †