Goodbye Old Mike, my friend

A couple of old friends of mine passed away recently. Memorial services are planned for later this summer.

I grieved when I heard the news, wishing that I’d stayed in closer contact, but now they were gone, never to be seen again.

I experienced my parents’ deaths in a similar fashion. I wasn’t there either time. They were cremated, and I received their remains neatly packaged in small cardboard boxes.

I was far removed from the spectre of death.

Last week I received a message that my friend Old Mike had passed away at the Loring Colony. One of the first Hutterites I ever met, he and I enjoyed each other’s company. We shared a lot of meals together, and on a few occasions, even a shot or two of whiskey.

He was a good-humored, hard-working man.

At the time of his death he was no longer Old Mike to his family, but had transitioned into Grandpa Mike, a role he relished.

The funeral service at the colony was conducted in old German, of which I understood nary a word, but understood its essence entirely.

Following the service we filed out of the church, past the open casket where I said my goodbye to Old Mike. Soon after, he was loaded into the back of a pickup where six young Hutterite men – his grandsons among them -- fastened the lid on the casket with screw guns as the truck slowly wound its way to the colony cemetery, or friedhof.

There, Old Mike was lowered into the ground and after a few ceremonial shovels of dirt were tossed into the grave, a remarkable display of Hutterite efficiency took place. Eight men picked up shovels and without saying a word attacked the piles of dirt flanking the grave.

In a scene of organized chaos, dirt flew, shovels flashed. When one man slowed, another stepped in, again without saying a word. In little more than a minute the grave was filled.

I hadn’t cried until then, but realized tears were running down my cheeks, perhaps as much in mourning Old Mike as in wonder at these amazing folk who live in a place they call “out here and gone.”

A few scant words of English were scattered in with the old German during the funeral service. This is what I heard: He lived. He loved. He left.

Rest in peace, my friend. We should all be so lucky.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]