View From The Organ Bench

Yesterday I played the organ for a funeral service at the Episcopal church where my wife Helen and I are members. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to play, because I don’t have a pipe organ at the Methodist church where I am the music director. I haven’t played for a funeral since my father-in-law, also my former organ teacher, died this past summer. The black folder of music that I call my “funeral binder” was still full of the selections which I had carefully chosen for the half hour of prelude music before his service. And Brian’s face was smiling at me from the service bulletin which I had placed in the back pocket.

The timing of the service worked out perfectly; it was a small affair to start at 10AM, and my eight hour shift at the grocery store deli, in the same town, didn’t start until 11:30. I arrived shortly after 9 wearing my professional church musician clothes, carrying my deli uniform in a plastic grocery bag. I conversed briefly with the minister and funeral director and went about preparing for the service.

I did not know the older man who had died. He was a member of the church, and according to his obituary, work and church were his life. He was survived by one son, who was among the dozen or so people all gathered on the left side of the sanctuary. Sitting at the organ, I was far removed from the others. No one even glanced in my direction until the Commendation, when suddenly I found myself looking into the eyes of the son over the casket of his father. I tried to tell him, “It’s okay. I know the darkness and the pain of loss. I do not presume to know your grief, but I have also lost a father.” When the priest said, “Yet even at the grave we make our song,” I mouthed the response, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

I walked into the deli an hour later, and I felt different than I usually do. I held my head higher, and my shoulders were back. Playing the organ for the funeral service reminded me of who I am at my core, under the grocery store uniform. I am first and foremost a church musician. I wanted to tell all my coworkers about the wonderful thing that I had done that morning.

Around dinner time, the son of the deceased came to the deli. I did a second take and confirmed that it was he. As a coworker waited on him, I kept trying to make eye contact with him over the deli counter. I thought, remember me? I was the organist for your father’s service. I wanted to tell him I knew that he had said goodbye to his father that morning; I knew that he was doing the ordinary act of ordering deli meat on a very unordinary, dark day. I hoped that he could see the musician under my uniform, the caring and compassion. But he didn’t seem to recognize me. It was at that moment that I realized that people come to the deli counter with all types of burdens and losses.