Committal Service - Carey Ann Hert

Fort Harrison Cemetery- Helena, MT

November 12, 2015

I suspect most if not all of you feel like what has happened over the past few days is unreal. The fact we have gathered here today to say goodbye to Carey must feel very, very strange. These feelings are normal and they almost always happen when death visits someone close to us.

During the time we have gathered together, I hope we can experience a good goodbye and share time that is filled with laughter and with tears.

I spent some time with Carey’s great friends Kelly and Michele to learn about Carey so I could make this time personal for you. One thing we learned is that both Carey and I love Celtic Spirituality. That shared appreciation allows me to weave some thoughts and feelings from Celtic spirituality into this service.

Over the past few years I have spent considerable time studying the work of the late John O’Donohue who was a Catholic Priest and theologian but was also a native Irish speaking philosopher and poet. I even spent time in Ireland last year pursuing my study. I have found his insight into human nature extraordinarily comforting and encouraging and he speaks to me not only as a Catholic but as someone who has also searched for those things of ultimate concern that bind all of us together regardless of faith. I hope you also find his teaching comforting. Let us begin with these thoughts on death.

WHEN DEATH VISITS . . .

Death is a lonely visitor. After it visits your home, nothing is ever the same again. There is an empty place at the table; there is an absence in the house. Having someone close to you die is an incredibly strange and desolate experience. Something breaks within you then that will never come together again. Gone is the person whom you loved, whose face and hands and body you knew so well. This body, for the first time, is completely empty. This is very frightening and strange. After the death many questions come into your mind concerning where the person has gone, what they see and feel now. The death of a loved one is bitterly lonely. When you really love someone, you would be willing to die in their place. Yet no one can take another’s place when that time comes. Each one of us has to go alone. It is so strange that when someone dies, they literally disappear. Human experience includes all kinds of continuity and discontinuity, closeness and distance. In death, experience reaches the ultimate frontier. The deceased literally falls out of the visible world of form and presence. At birth you appear out of nowhere, at death you disappear to nowhere. . . . The terrible moment of loneliness in grief comes when you realize that you will never see the deceased again. The absence of their life, the absence of their voice, face, and presence become something that, as Sylvia Plath says, begins to grow beside you like a tree.

We all know that to have a loved one die is to know true sadness and to experience profound grief. For all of you there is sadness and grief that Carey is gone, sadness and grief because she had to suffer from a terrible illness and to die so young. The sadness and grief are real and to deny them would be to wound yourself in way that healing will never come. It is ok to be sad and to grieve but the sadness and grief should be for we who have remained behind but not for Carey. Let’s hear what John O’Donohue has to say about grief:

We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadows, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.

Here are some facts about Carey.

Carey Ann Hert was born December 9, 1969 in Helena, Montana and died on October 25, 2015 in Kirkland, Washington. She was the wife of Carey Hert, the mother of Justin, Colin and Brittin and the step-mother of Tyler, Ryan and Ashlee. She was the sister of Charleen, Harley and Trampus and the Granddaughter of Charlene. Of course she was also a cousin, niece and aunt and, to an even larger number, a great friend.

These things, though, are just facts which cannot describe who she was or the impact she had on all of you over the years of your lives together. In an obituary we read a person was born on a certain day and died on certain day.

On most gravestones, the date of birth and the date of death are separated by dash. The day we are born and the day we day are really transition dates, they don’t really describe our lives. We live our lives in the dash. Let’s talk about the dash that was Carey’s life.

The dash for Carey represents the joy she knew when each of you, her children, were born. The dash marks when you and she met, fell in love and married, Carey. The dash are days she spent you in Cabo. The dash is when she convinced you, Carey, to buy a Harley so she could look so beautiful riding behind you with her arms around your waist. The dash is about her love for fast cars with big engines. The dash was marked by Carey’s love of shooting and hunting. The dash, of course, is when Mackey wormed his way into her heart.

There is more - the dash is when Cary’s anger at you would boil up like a summer storm but then fade away to be replaced by the sweetness of forgiveness which would grow up and join you together again. For Carey, more than anything, the dash was a time of passion, a passion for each of you and for all people. There is something about passion that became very clear to me as I visited with Michele and Kelly and later when I looked at pictures of Carey. Her passion was indomitable.

Through your tears and laughter I promise you this. Her passion will keep her close to you. The mark her passion made on each of you is indelible and will keep you company on your own journeys. I believe this with all my heart.

Why is there suffering and death?

A question each of us has today is why Carey had to suffer and die. Every day we hear about miracles of people with terrible diagnoses being healed and who get to go on with life. It would be normal for you to ask how a loving God could let something like this happen not only to Carey but to anyone who knows pain and suffering. The simple answer is not an easy answer but it is a true answer. It is because God created us to be free and freedom has to have choices and consequences or it is not really freedom.

In the bible when we read about miracles performed by Jesus, he does not say to those healed, “Go, your faith has healed you.” Instead, he says, “Go, your faith saved you.” Healing is about the here and now and it is temporary. Even if we are healed today, inevitably our lives will come to an end and we will encounter death. Being saved is about the hereafter. The real promise God makes us is that he is with us always through all the days of our life and he will offer us a place in eternity with him.

I do not believe it was God’s will that Carey should contract cancer and die but I believe that what has happened is part of God’s plan for us. Life is the time when our souls inhabits a body. Eternal life begins when our soul is freed from our body. Carey is now free. The Celts believe this, “The human journey is a continuous act of transfiguration.”

Because of her human death Carey has transfigured from a body with a soul to a soul in the presence of God.

From Celtic spirituality we also learn this: If you live in this world with kindness, if you don't add to other people's burdens, but if you try to serve love, when the time comes for you to make the journey, you will receive a serenity, peace and a welcoming freedom that will enable you to go to the other world with great elegance, grace and acceptance.

This happened for Carey.

I also believe in the infinite mercy of God. I know He has looked deep into Carey’s heart and he will grant her his peace, a peace we will be able sense but not touch. I also believe God will help us with our own sorrow if we look to him for help. The reason I am here with you is that I believe with all my heart and soul that if we believe in God and seek his mercy, we will never die but will live with him forever.

Passion

Before we say goodbye, there are just a few more things I would like share. From Celtic spirituality we also learn the way we look at things is the most powerful force in shaping our life. That means a person of great passion inspires passion in those people fortunate enough to journey with her. Here a just a couple of things which prove the point.

Michele Wigert wrote this:

Beyond personal possession, the greatest gift Carey gave us was a moment, or a lifetime of her and presence in our lives; that, in itself is priceless.

Shauna ask me to share this:

She was a bright spot in my life and now when I look up at the twinkling of stars, I will think of Carey’s twinkling eyes and her incredible laugh!

Becky wanted to say this:

She was her husband’s love of her life. They had a too short but wonderful love story. Her strength, beauty, sassiness and charm endeared her to many people.

Goodbye

Here is a question. Where is Carey now? This is what the Celt’s tell us.

When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden and control of space and time. The soul is free; distance and separation hinder it no more. The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. A great theologian was once asked, “Where does the soul of a person go when the person dies?” He said, “no place.” Where else would the soul be going? Where else is the eternal world? It can be nowhere other than here.

This what my faith enables me to believe. Those close to us are not far away. They are as close to us as our next thought, our next memory. When we remember Carey, she will be right there with you. Her passion for each of you did not end with her death. Our faith allows us to believe that. The tree that grows in us that I talked about early on is the tree of life that is covered with leaves of memory. As time goes by, the memories will soften and sweeten and you won’t remember just what happened during her illness and passing. You will remember the sound of her voice when she answered the phone. You will remember the times when she told you she loved you and you will remember when you told her the same thing. I promise you heaven is right here in front of us. You will know it too if you allow the kindness of memories to show you what you cannot see today.

Blessing

It is time to say our final goodbyes to our sister Carey. Allow me to offer this blessing of her ashes before we place her to rest.

Carey, may perpetual light shine upon your face and the faces of all who rest here with you.

May the life you and all these others lived unfold further in spirit with God and all who have gone before you.

May the remembering earth hold on to every memory you brought.

May the rains from the heavens fall gently upon this place.

May the wildflowers and grasses whisper their wishes into the light and delight you.

May we reverence the presence of you and those who rest with you in the stillness of this silent field.

May God bless you and keep you close to you, may he let his grace settle upon you and may he keep you in his peace.

As for us, bless us and keep us, keep your face turned toward us, and grant us healing and peace.

Amen