Care for the bodies of our dead is an affirmation of our firm belief in the resurrection.
Saint Augustine, "On Caring for the Dead"
It is Good Friday, two springs after my mother's death, the first spring after my father's. Today I'm less aware of the Savior's torturous dying than of the cold death, the artists' visions of Mary cradling a man's corpse, believing his final phrase: "It is finished." With another woman's Joseph, she wrapped her son in swaddling cloths and laid him in a stone tomb because there was no room among the living. On Sunday morning other Marys carrying aromatic spices would hope to delay the decay, but they knew there was no real disguise. Flesh to dust.
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