DAY OF THE DEAD
Sunday morning at 5:45 a.m. Susie caught a taxi, driven by an Iraqi taxi driver, to Celle where she caught the train to Hannover airport and the flight home.
At 8 Elke phoned me to ask if I wanted to go to the Winsen church next door. It was the day of the dead service at which the names of all of the people who had died in Winsen and the surrounding area were to be read out loud, including Kathe’s name.
Only people who had signed up for church were to be allowed in but Elke had arranged for us to be allowed in as well. A woman at the door checked everyone on the list. Once in the door we had to show our vaccination certificates and then to sign in with the Luca app which would indicate when we entered and left. Once in the church we had to sit six feet apart at spots marked by a red tape. Of course we were masked.
The service was beautiful with every hymn preluded with a flute ensemble. There were a number of Bible readings and a short sermon, a meditation on the shortness of life and the reality of death, and then two ministers alternated as they each read the names of ten people who had died. In front of them in the 500 year old baptismal font were 100 lighted candles for the 100 people in the Winsen area who died last year. Kathe’s name, which had been added last was read last. Candles for two more people who died in the last day or two were added. It was a solemn and beautiful ceremony in yet another beautiful church which Kathe attended as a girl and which was very important to her. She sang in the choir when in Germany. The Lord’s Prayer was recited at the end of the service. Whenever the Lord’s Prayer was recited in the Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church, Kathe would recite it in German, not in English.
Then in the afternoon Elke invited me back. The names were recited in a looped slide show where many of the people were pictured with lovely recorder music of a group that Elke played with. The show was continuous, over and over again, from 1 to 6 in the afternoon.
The day before Susie had driven to Garssen to collect rose petals which she fastened to the small birch tree in the former Schrader family plot and she buried some of Kathe’s ashes in front of the church.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 