My lady, I have a gift for you.
I do not want to give it, and the world would be a better place if I didn’t have to, but if a soul is going to have to leave this mortal world, I can think of no better place than with you.
I want to tell you of this man, of his hopes, and his dreams. His successes in the face of adversity, his defeats from the safety of his assumptions. I should tell you of the family he raised who love him, the enemies he made that respected him, and the dog he fed that worshiped him.
All of that, though, would be a waste of both our time. You knew him far better than I did. You didn’t need to hear each of these people as they anecdoted him from the living into the remembered. You were there. I am but a third act bit part in this play, sent to orchestrate this final ceremony.
One of the least pleasant roles I have in this world is to be the final point of departure for a soul, but I am always proud to do it, and I learn of people more than if I’d ever met them alive. We seldom tell people why we remember them, they way they touched our life, shaped it, changed it. Dug a new channel for our experiences to flow down, seeing them in a new context and a new light.
And the ending of a life provides a new lense we can examine ourselves in, and reaffirm what they taught us.
In the name of the lover, I send a gift of your follower to you.
In the name of the midwife, I help the ring of life and death turn again,
In the name of the traveller, I send a new experience for you.
In the name of the fool, I know I will join him some day.
In the name of the weaver, I lay this soul to rest eternal by your side.