Handing Them Over

I brought Pat, Bill, and Gene Kowall from Florida to Illinois in June 2025. Pat was my dad’s cousin. Bill, Pat’s son, was my second cousin. Gene was Pat’s husband. This morning, I loaded their cremains into my car and brought them to my office, where I handed them over to one of Gene’s relatives for their eventual interment.

That made my morning commute a little different. I was not alone.

As I placed them in the car, I remembered another ride many years ago. Pat, Gene, and Bill had moved from Mount Prospect to Jacksonville, Florida, while Bill was in high school. When I visited, Bill took me for a ride in his first car. He was a high school senior and wanted to show me around, so we drove downtown and walked along the newly renovated Riverwalk.

While we were away, someone broke into the car.

Most of the ordinary details of that visit have disappeared from my memory. Yet I still remember that ride, the Riverwalk, and what we found when we returned. Memory is strange that way. Whole years can become indistinct while a single afternoon remains sharply outlined.

This morning, Bill and I shared one more ride.

The same day that I prepared to hand over those cremains, I learned that Rev. Ruth Costello had died following a recurrence of cancer and a very brief time in hospice. Pastor Ruth served Community Protestant Church during my first sabbatical. For a time, she preached from our pulpit, led our worship, cared for our congregation, and became part of our shared story.

All Saints’ Day is approaching, and suddenly its invitation feels less abstract.

The church speaks of the “communion of saints,” but the saints are not merely distant figures painted on icons or remembered in history books. They are the people who rode beside us. They are the pastors who prayed with us, the relatives who helped shape us, and the people whose stories became intertwined with our own. They are those whose names awaken gratitude, laughter, grief, or sometimes a mixture of all three.

We carry them in different ways.

For a time, I carried Pat, Bill, and Gene quite literally. But the containers entrusted to me could not hold the fullness of their lives. They could not contain their years together, my joy when my favorite relatives on my dad’s side moved from Illinois to Florida, or Bill’s excitement over a first car. They could not contain the stuff of life. No container can hold a life. Neither can an obituary, a photograph, or a grave.

So we carry what we can. We remember a Thanksgiving together, a funny saying, a story told around a table, or an afternoon beside a river. Congregations remember a pastor who served faithfully for a season. Through such memories, those who have died continue to accompany us.

But there also comes a time to hand them over.

This morning, I handed Pat, Bill, and Gene into the care of another relative. Eventually, their remains will be handed over to the earth. Today, those who loved Pastor Ruth are beginning the painful work of handing over a beloved life to memory and to God.

That does not mean leaving anyone behind.

All Saints’ Day reminds us that the people we can no longer hold are held by God. We do not have to preserve every memory perfectly or resolve every unfinished part of a life. We remember what we can, give thanks for what we received, grieve what we have lost, and entrust the rest to grace.

Perhaps that is the question before us as All Saints’ Day approaches: Whom are you carrying, and what would it mean to place that person once more into the care of God?

Our hands eventually must let go.

God’s do not.

Tags: All Saints' Day Communion of Saints UCC