A number of the Myrrhbearing team traveled to Brenham to pray over the grave of parishioner Carol Lockett and over the grave of James Cloud, the father of parishioner Luke Cloud.
Click here for Carol’s obituary.
Ashes to Ashes
by Becky Thurner
Within two weeks of each other at the end of our long, hot summer, our friend Carol died and we put our sweet dog Nika to sleep.
I haven’t had to think about death (or at least dealing with it personally) for a long time, not since my father-in-law died 11 years ago from complications with Parkinson’s, and a few years before that when my mother-in-law died from cancer. They were loving and generous and never meddled, and I loved them both. Our kids were little then, however, and the hourly demands that all that entails was like a wave that swooped me up after the funerals and planted me back into the hustle and bustle of life and of the living.
But the early Saturday morning that we had to make the emergency call to the vet to put Nika down was the day we were moving Rachel and Matt out for college. We surely didn’t plan it that way, but her mouth cancer became so bad Friday night that there was no question of her enduring another day. I slept on the living room floor with her that night, wondering how it could possibly be that she could be there with me tonight, and gone tomorrow. How I would have to change the routine I had lived with for 4,380 days; how I knew she would trust us even up to the last minute. She was the kids’ dog; the one they had begged for 12 years ago, and she ended up dying on the day they left home. It was as if she knew her purpose, and when she had fulfilled it lovingly and loyally, she left us.
Carol was our 60 year old goddaughter, and friend to many St. John parishioners. Her road to conversion was a long and arduous one, and included leaving our parish for a good chunk of time to join the Episcopal Church. She was the daughter of a strict Presbyterian minister, and attended seminary herself. But despite the love and respect she had for him, she did what many of us do in our know-it-all days of youth, and walked out on organized religion lock, stock and barrel.
Being well-read and well-versed in the Scriptures and theology, however, Carol eventually struggled with what to do with all of it. Although her husband Landon never stopped her from rediscovering her spirituality, he is not a religious person and was not the emotionally supportive spouse she could go home to and engage in religious discussions. And if anyone loved to banter back and forth in spiritual debate, it was Carol, and she livened up many theological seminars and book studies at the church with her pointed questions and comments, mostly aimed at why the Orthodox Church does not ordain female clergy.
She took everything very seriously, but had a quick and sharp wit. There are countless anecdotes I could tell about her, but one of my favorites was when we were talking about a memorial service she had attended several years ago for a well-respected and openly homosexual retired UT librarian who had been cremated. It was at a creek down by campus, and guests were in folding chairs that had been set up next to the water. After the eulogies were said, one of his family members opened the container that held his ashes and sprinkled them over the creek as had been his wish. When Carol got home, she noticed all these whitish-grey flecks stuck in her navy blue polyester trousers, and laughed to herself that no one would ever believe that John Womack was actually in her pants.
Anyway, many of us (especially our priest of endless patience, Father Aidan, and my husband Rob) held her hand on her five year journey to Orthodoxy. There were times when our fingertips were just barely touching, when she had given up on her gut beliefs in order to have her more immediate religious needs met elsewhere. As for the rest of the time, I can’t say it was a hand-holding that was warm and fuzzy or gentle and melting; in fact, it was more like a reaching out on both sides to just hang on lovingly and patiently. And that’s what we all did, through her questions, her doubts, her stubbornness, her intensity and finally her breast cancer.
I’m not going to describe the entire chronology of events or the treatments and side effects that she went through the last three years of her life. But I will say this: Carol did not become Orthodox because she knew she was dying. In fact, when she was first diagnosed and going through some awful stuff, we thought that would be her “Aha!” moment. But that is when she left to join an Episcopal parish, where the female pastor allowed her to be a reader.
In March, 2008, her oncologist gave her 4 weeks to live. Did I mention that Carol was stubborn? And intense? She found another doctor who made her no promises, except that he would try everything he could think of. He did, and she lived for another 16 months. Somewhere in that God-given time, Carol felt the pull of Orthodoxy again, and knew that it would always be stronger and more profound than the concept of female clergy, because it is the true faith that Christ Jesus gave to the apostles and has been faithfully handed down from generation to generation. So in December, she relinquished her political correctness and was chrismated, and it was a joy to stand by her side.
Surrounded by the dozens of icons and religious books in her tiny bedroom, Carol spent the next eight months battling for her life. We all waited with her for test results, and watched as the chemo for the cancer that had spread to her liver continued to take its toll. And then an MRI showed 15 small brain tumors. That meant daily brain radiation for six weeks, and they would have to stop the chemo during that time. There was no coming back from all that. Rob and I often wondered whether we would fight so hard to suffer so much, but of course we have never walked in those shoes. I can only say that she was a fighter who endured great emotional and physical suffering, and I will always remember that strength.
Carol died on September 3rd. Actually we say she fell asleep in the Lord, because we are told we will rise again. Instead of being in an unfamiliar funeral home, her casket was in our church, and those who wanted to, stayed through the night and took turns reading the Psalms until morning, never leaving her body alone. After our moving funeral service which addresses death head-on, all of us who are united with her in Christ gently gave her a last kiss with our final goodbye.
She is buried out in Brenham, close to College Station, in Landon’s family’s cemetery. At the very end, she expressed to some of us that she felt the need to be closer to St. John’s, in the cemetery at the end of our street, but Landon wanted her to be buried where he will be eventually. I used to think it didn’t really matter where your body was because it is your soul that matters, but if my friends are driving by my grave every week, I’m pretty sure I have a better chance of being prayed for, and that is what every soul needs.
On the other hand, I didn’t ask for Nika’s ashes after they cremated her. I still thank God that she was a part of our lives for as long as she was, and I know that He takes care of all His creatures even after death, but I’m afraid that if I walked by her little container everyday, I’d feel like I’d need to pet it or take it for a walk. There is a difference between humans and animals after all.