Osler's Razor

Yesterday, they gathered under an old oak tree by a river in Nashville to remember a life. The river is swollen with Spring, the trees are still bare, but the grass is green now, ripening. It's an old farm, with stone fences and faint ruins here and there. They set the body in a coffin, and set the coffin under the tree.

His life was one marked by love and redemption. He married, after thirty years, the person he loved the whole time. He loved and cared for Nashville, too, growing things in that city up from seeds until they were thriving and bursting with life.

Inside the house on the farm, after the body was put in the ground, they laughed and hugged and cried and sometimes stood quietly (though not much of that). There were a lot of stories, and they all were stories of love, one way or another. It was one of those times that grief and remembered joy twine together like lovers.

It will never make sense, of course. He came to the door because he heard his dogs barking, and his nephew was there, with a gun. The nephew shot in anger, and killed Stephen McRedmond first, before turning the gun on himself.

Can that be understood? No more than we understand the swollen river or miracle of those thin and bright green shoots.

Haiku today about the ways we have remembered those who have gone. No strict syllable count; just three short lines. I will go first:

Too many eulogies
And so rare, these lives,
We must respond with love.

Now, it is your turn...