Sing Us a Song, Piano Man

While on the walking/bike trail this morning, Billy Joel’s “The Piano Man,” began playing through my earbuds.

This was one of my late brother Jim’s favorite songs. We often talked about it. So, when it started playing, I raised my index finger to the sky and said, “This one is for you, Jim, wherever you are or aren’t.”

Death has always been a mystery to me. Eternal life, the idea of immortality after this life, is something I can’t explain or even comprehend.

As a minister, I was, over the years, with many people who were dying and, in some instances, who died in my presence. There is a profound change in the body at death, an emptying of life. The human spirit leaves, you can almost see it happening, and disappears into the inscrutable and is gone forever.

Where does that spirit go? I’m not certain. As a Christian, I want to believe our essence, our spirit finds rest somewhere beautiful. But, in spite of those classic Bible verses and the long history of Christianity’s promotion of an afterlife, the truth is, we don’t know. We can believe there is something more. We can hope. But nothing is certain.

Someone has said death is not the last sleep but the final awakening. Tagore, the passionate mystic, wrote something similar: “Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” And the famous Indian chief, Seattle, said, “There is no death. Only a change of worlds.”

These are emotional and poetic interpretations, lovely and affirming. But still, we don’t really know.

I thought of Jim the rest of my morning walk. He died too soon after a long debilitating illness, a slow-progressing form of muscular dystrophy. He was also a minister, a Methodist, and I have the long silk ecclesiastical stole he wore over his pulpit robe hanging across the top of the door that goes to the patio in my apartment. Bright red with a gold Cross on each end, it reminds me of him and his devotion to his beliefs and his congregation of worshippers.

When he resigned his rural church because he was no longer able to physically fulfill the demands of his position, he quietly left and moved to a small apartment in the city.

His life grew more withdrawn, more isolated. His illness reduced him to limited movement. Eventually, his broken body succumbed to the disease.

He did not complain. He did not blame. He hated his illness and the cruel constraints it placed on him. But he accepted it with courage and grace.

As I ended my walk, I thought of the final visits I shared with him. I would drive from Dallas to Oklahoma City and spend the day with him. We chatted about old times, family vacations, theology, church, books we liked, movies and songs that moved us.

Without trying to sound immodest, I think Jim followed me into the ministry. He wanted a bond with me and to do something good for others. I was finishing up seminary when he entered it. We would see each other across campus. He took it all so seriously. But it often frustrated him. It challenged everything he had ever been taught or believed. I loved all of that and began an endless search for what it all meant. Jim wanted to hold on tight to the beliefs he carried with him to seminary. He didn’t want a challenge. He wanted affirmation. We often talked about this. Sometimes we argued about it. But eventually, our love and respect for one another prevailed.

I saw him a week or so before he died. But I regret I was not there at the end, to hold his hand, to keep him company, to be near when his final breaths were taken, as he slipped into the sweet and beautiful unknown.

“Sing us a song you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well we're all in the mood for a melody
And you got us feeling alright”

Jim, the piano man.

© 2019 Timothy Moody