Today is All Saints Day. It is a day that always gets to me. The service is always meaningful and when the ribbon cross comes by me, I always have to choke back tears. It is so pretty as it floats by and I feel like I know every name on that cross, even if most people never see the tiny writing on the fluttering ribbons.
The cross is something I am honored to do and this year it hit me more than ever. It is kind of odd when I see the cross. I don’t get the feeling of pride for something I worked on, I don’t see the time spent writing the names of those we lost and praying for them and their loved ones. The cross seems like an entity all its own, like something that once it leaves my hands is a part of everyone. It is like my hands did the work, my heart felt the process but then it becomes something separate from me. Not mine at all.
Each year when I finish writing the names, it seems like I just spent time with a friend. If the name is someone I didn’t know, then I am praying for people I am unsure of. If it is someone I knew, I can be more specific. Somehow, it is comforting to speak and write those names.
The past two years I have written the names at home, slipping the ribbons on the week before All Saints at church. Between the pandemic last year and my back surgery this year, carrying the whole cross around the church in search of a quiet spot just wasn’t practical.
In the past I have always carried the cross to an empty room upstairs in the church and written the new names among the old. I liked when I would find people I knew to be friends or relatives and I could put their names together. Having names interspersed across the years is one of the things I like best about the cross.
This year, once I had the ribbons finished, Tim went with me since I am not supposed to lift anything. I am glad he did because the cross had been moved due to new flooring being put down behind the altar. I would never have found it without him.
As I put on the new ribbons and adjusted the old ones, I saw names of friends and family. I told Tim that I had spots on some of the old ribbons where I could add names. I said that I hoped next year that I could just add names on existing ribbons like I used to, intermingling the past and the present. I told him that I planned to eventually sew ribbons on top of ribbons so that no name ever comes off of that cross. The thought of everyone of all generations being there together is very important and symbolic to me.
My back surgery has made me realize I am not invincible. As much as I have always felt young for my age and ready to jump into anything, I have had to slow down and take stock. It has made me feel old some days and ready to get better and do even more on other days.
The first few days after surgery were hard and I was not really willing to just sit. After two weeks, I felt better and had my doctor’s permission to walk as much as I felt up to and I could drive again. Driving hurt, sometimes walking hurt, (although I am determined to get back to the same 5K this March that I did last March!) and I had moments of doubt and depression.
I feel more connected to my mother, who had back issues most of her adult life and feel more empathy for people who have a reason why they can’t walk as fast or bend as easily. I realize that we never know what someone else is dealing with and we need to extend that grace just a little further, now more than ever before.
Even now, 4 weeks out from surgery, I sit in a chair that hurts or I have a day I feel exhausted and sore and I wonder if I will ever get back to where I was before. It is then that I have to stop myself and remember it has only been 4 weeks. I am under restrictions for 4 more weeks and then have 4 more weeks after that of looser restrictions. It can take up to a year for everything to repair itself however much it is going to. I have to be patient.
Patience is not my thing, I am ready to move furniture and decorate for the holidays, start running and doing yoga again. I know it will all get done, I have a husband and kids who are just waiting for me to ask them to help, but I am a let ME get it done NOW kind of gal.
I have days like today when I stand above the prayer garden as others call out the name of their loved ones that were lost this year, unsure if I should be down there with them. My mixed emotions over my father’s loss doesn’t mean I am not weeping as I stand there, it means I am still confused about my feelings. It is in moments like this that I realize just how conflicted I am.
Maybe I always will be conflicted. Maybe this time of recovery will be a quiet time to also recover from the loss and mixed emotions. Maybe instead of fighting this time when I can’t do as much as I am used to doing, as much as I plan to be doing again soon, I should spend more time really thinking about how I actually feel, and how I move on.
Someday I hope that someone else continues the All Saints ribbon cross, but I have no control over that. I hope that someday in the very distant future my name is written in gold on a white ribbon beside some of the people who were my friends, my role models and my family, people who helped raise my child and who were there for me when I needed a boost.
I hope whoever continues this tradition someday will take the time to pray over each name and realize what a legacy they are a part of. I hope that they realize that even if they don’t know the name that they are writing or they see a name from the past that means nothing to them, that they are somehow connected to every name on that cross. That each one of them, the writer and the names being written, the saints and the sinners, are all part of the tapestry that makes us who we are.
