The Loving of Louise 

In the time of her passing

Liz Rog

July 7, 2025

It was the time of the blooming of the day lilies, elderflowers, chicory, queen anne’s lace. Blackcap season. Firefly time. That’s when Louise, beloved Louise, passed from this realm to another. 

Her family invited us to gather in the holy space where she lay in her home, to honor her life and her passing by simply being by her side, by their side, for a few days. This was new for them and to our community. How would it be? But once they said ‘yes’ to the idea, the magic of community was unleashed and love led the way.  What a gift it was to gather in this timeless space.  

 I was there sometimes. I’ll tell you what I saw. 

There was daytime and there was nighttime. There was dawn, when Janet and Louise’s bedroom faces a magnificent view of the sunrise. There was the golden gloaming of the evening, when the fireflies lit the yard. At night, candle light and quiet voices, sometimes singing, sometimes silence. In the day, more friends and neighbors coming and going. Always, family from near and far. Sometimes stories, sometimes silence, sometimes music. In Spanish, one of Louise’s love languages, Elsa sang ‘Gracias a la Vida’ and Elizabeth sang Luna Tucumana. Bill played the banjo.  Anne played drum and young Jack joined in. Katie rang her singing bowls. Bob and John made a playlist of her favorites. All of this and more. 

On the night before she died the Kitchen Table Singers had come to sing. By then Louise was remaining in bed, no longer speaking. Standing outside under the roof of the covered deck, we sang. Family sat watching and listening from inside as the sky opened and rain poured down from what moments ago had been a sunlit sky. Janet told us that Louise put her hands to her heart. 

In the early morning Louise died. The family spent that first day alone with her, and in the evening community members were invited to help hold the vigil. Louise’s body lay there, adorned by Elsa with a beautiful white brocade cloth, pine boughs, and bouquets of flowers at the head and foot of her bed. 

Freezing slows water; ice on a body slows nature and provides time for vigil. And so ice was carefully placed on Louise’s body, then changed out every few hours. 

There was space on the bed next to her where family members sometimes perched nearer and gently touched her. Chairs were brought in, at first two and then more. 

Louise was on a journey, but so were each of us. For us the living: at first a feeling of How?  How can this be?  How do we hold this?  Then a settling in: We are here. There is nothing else. On the second evening, children running and playing outside, extended family eating pizza in the kitchen, and from Louise’s room it sounded like a 4th of July party, and it was the 4th of July but the celebration was not about that.  We were celebrating life: Louise’s, Louise and Janet’s, Louise and everyone and everything she touched. 

There was by this point, woven in with the grief, also a feeling of peace, of comfort. Maybe even a rare kind of...what was it…joy? Maybe it was a sense of homecoming to a familiar ancestral landscape of wholeness–that one can be loved so much as Louise was being loved, that one’s soul could be supported in this way as it journeyed on. Maybe too it was borne from the relief of being together at this time that can otherwise be so isolating and lonely. Perhaps also it was gratitude from being welcomed to be in service to Louise and her family. 

I imagined that Louise’s spirit was beholding us all there, grateful to be witnessing our love. I imagined that part of the message we were sending her was that even in our grieving, we know that life will have to go on, and you will still and always be part of it. See? We are here with you, and we will carry on, singing, eating, playing, crying, laughing. Being family, being community. 

On Saturday afternoon the hearse would be arriving to move Louise’s body to the crematorium. Janet, Conor, and the other close relatives knew that they wanted to be the ones to carry her to out, staying with her until the last moment. They decided to enshroud her. I am pretty sure that none of them, nor any of the rest of us who happened to be present at that moment, had done such a thing before, but love showed the way. Louise’s adoring little brother Jon (she was 12 when he was born and used to walk him to school each day) and Conor guided us as many hands helped to remove the pine boughs, candles, and ice packs, and then lift, shift, and arrange the white brocade cloth until it was wrapped all around her body, head to toe. People pulled flowers from the bouquets and placed them on her heart, and then the last fold was closed over her body. A white sheet appeared, and someone brought scissors, and Louise’s niece Kate and others made long strips of fabric to tie around Louise’s body to hold the shroud in place. More lifting, pulling the strips underneath her, wrapping again, tying. Family members tied the first ones, and then Conor began meeting eyes with others of us who were present, holding up a strip as he silently invited each to be part of this ritual. Someone gently laid more flowers on her chest. 

All the while we were singing a simple song whose only word was Grateful. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful.* 

What was next? None of us quite knew, but as we kept singing, Conor and Janet came close to one another and conferred. Then Conor asked us to keep singing while he told us what would be next: we were each invited to say our last farewells and then depart from the room, where he and Janet would remain. And so we did, one by one, bringing the song to the hallway where we lingered until the last of us was out. Then the doors to the room were closed. Back in the living room, soft conversation. Breath. Hugs. Tears. Some of us said our goodbyes. Family members stayed. Some are there still. 

To watch during those hours of vigil in which dozens of people came and went from the candlelit, flower bedecked room where Louise’s body lay, one might think that we’d all been doing this our whole lives. That maybe we’d grown up with it as a normal thing, hanging out near the body of our neighbor, friend, mother, lover. That this was familiar.

But I don’t know if that was true for any one of us. Yet we somehow collectively knew, the minute we entered that holy space, that there was nothing else to do but to be present in whatever way we each were. And whether we were Louise’s dear family, or oldest friends, or newer friends, we felt welcome. More than welcome; we felt necessary. That doing this was necessary, and therefore so were we. 

Did we know what we were doing? No. But, Yes. Yes. 

Did we learn things we might do differently another time? Yes. 

Was it perfect? Oh yes it was. 

Here’s gratitude to Janet, Conor, and all of the family members who welcomed us into their home to be part of this sacred holding. For creating a spacious time in which we could bring our whole hearts to honor beloved Louise’s life, which is also to honor Janet and Louise's love, Conor and Louise’s love, Jack and Flynn’s love, just all of the love that was there inside the grief of her passing.

In this place where we live there are now some children who might grow up knowing that this is one way we can be together in such a sad time. There are now adults who know that too. There are daylilies, chicory, and queen anne’s lace that will bloom again next year. There are fireflies who were mating that night, elder flowers even now becoming berries, and children out eating ripe blackcaps–

–as life keeps creating life. 

*Here is the song Grateful, by Sarina Partridge, that we sang as Louise was being enshrouded. (we simply sang the ‘Grateful’ part.)