Reflections on a Meaningful Life: Funeral Homily for Xavi Kiemde

Xavier Jean Kiemde, September 13, 2012

Written and delivered by Patty Stromen, Church of the Ascension, Minneapolis, MN

There are many ways that we describe what a meaningful life is. 

Some people say it is the length of life, some people say it is the possessions that we own, some people say it is the relationships that we form.

As Christians we have a very clear definition for a meaningful life, we believe our vocation, what gives greatest meaning to life, what we are born for, is to embrace God’s love and reflect it back to the world. That reflection of God’s love is at the heart of a meaningful life. To quote Fr. Greg Tolaas, “Let love meet love.”

Baby Xavier, baby Xavi,  during his life in the womb, and his brief time outside his mother’s womb, lived the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for.  He experienced God’s love perfectly, and he reflected God’s love to each of us.

In the first reading from Isaiah, we are given an image of God never forgetting us, writing each of our names on the palms of God’s hand. 

We might hear this and think, could this really be true?  Could God really love me that deeply? God’s abiding love as described by Isaiah is more deeply embedded in each of us by witnessing Melissa and Francois’s love for  Xavi. 

From the moment he was conceived, when he was a twinkle in God’s eyes, he was loved deeply by Melissa and Francois.  When faced with impossible decisions, they chose to mirror God’s love for each of us, in their decision to honor, receive, and embrace Xavi’s life, however his life came to them.  Melissa and Francois celebrated the perfect conditions of love and warmth inside Melissa’s womb and parented Xavi before he was ever placed in their arms.

Could there be a clearer or deeper image of God’s love for each of us?

Lest we romanticize God’s love for us and our love for God, and lest we romanticize the challenges that you faced Melissa and Francois,  we are given the Gospel reading from Matthew that Fr. Michael just proclaimed.

I have to believe it isn’t by chance that we hear, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike”, and yet only two verses further, 

Even with the pure and simple faith of a child, believing that our ever-loving God, along with all the angels and saints are welcoming Xavi home to heaven with a huge party, and hopefully each of us some day, we know it is almost impossible to say good-bye to this beautiful little boy.

So how do we do this?  

We place our good-bye to Xavi’s body in the midst of our belief that his spirit is soaring in God’s hands. We do it by believing, as the poem that Francois and Fabio read says, (which by the way is a poem that was memorized by Francois when he was a young boy in school): 

“Those who have died have never left, they are in the shades that become clearer, they are in the water that runs."

Xavi is in our hearts forever.

Xavi has led the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for – he has, and will continue, to live perfectly in God’s love, and to reflect God’s love back to us.  

In thanksgiving for this most precious gift you have given us God, we give the precious gift of this beautiful baby boy back to you.  We trust you continue to love him and cradle him in your arms.

May we trust that you cradle us in your arms in the joys and the and the sorrows that today brings.

Like a little child, in his father’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.
Like a little child, in his mother’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.

A month into this grief business: Finding gifts

Welcoming Xavier Jean Kiemde -- September 13, 2012

I woke up last Thursday morning and had this thought, "It was four weeks ago today that we met Xavi." My day, really my entire week, has been marked by this month anniversary of his arrival.

"I had a son..."

These words have the ability to break open my heart all over again...

"The mind, in such pain and turmoil, is seeking comfort and meaning. In Victor Krankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" he tells us that in the worst circumstances humans face, the ones who survive are those who can find meaning in their suffering."

I see Xavi's tiny body, smell his newborn skin, think of the ways that Francois and I marked his very brief time with us;  I cry and I laugh recalling it all. His squeaks-- taking in air; his warm skin next to mine; his 3 pound 9 oz frame that struck me with its perfections. Hello toes. Hi fingers. Hi little nose and dark hair. Even his omphalocele felt perfect -- like an extension of umbilical cord that we dressed with his diaper -- not at all daunting or scary, as I had envisioned it might be. His 29 week old body that we bathed, anointed in oil, baptized and loved completely: all God's; so Melissa's and Francois'.

In the time that has passed since we met Xavi, I have marveled at the graces afforded us in this grieving process. (The family and faith friends showing up at the hospital, our amazing neighbors showering us with food and flowers and support; the concentric circles of  blessed beings enveloping us at Xavi's funeral; all a demonstration of community, of love, of people to be with in grief and in our next steps of joy, recovery, hope.)

I should maybe back up -- I need to say that I marvel at the graces afforded us since the start of this journey conceiving and bringing Baby Boy Kiemde to the earth! In hindsight, it is all gift, all love and mystery wrapped in this tiny, precious being who lived for one hour inside the walls of United Hospital, after he blessed me for 29 weeks growing in my belly -- and lives on in our hearts, minds, and the blessed realm of angels.

I believe that with our son's brief life has come a transformational opportunity to heal wounds that have been debilitating for both me and my husband.  

How long did I dream of a son? For how many years has Francois imagined himself a father to a boy? And for this desire to come to pass in such a fashion? It is both a cruelty coupled with an unfathomable gift of fate, methinks...

I say "gift" over and over these days, when I think of Xavi's brief life, because I think of all the ways that I have known love and calling coupled with sorrow and loss in my life. I can make a list of ways that I have felt, beyond reason and without a doubt, called to love and be present in specific ways that have ultimately not played out in a manner that I had hoped or desired. (Do you remember when I taught high school? Do you recall the non-profit I started and folded? Who remembers the early days of me crashing vehicle after vehicle? Shall we reflect on the way I have loved tequila in my life? How about men?)

I can count the ways that I have felt myself to be a kind of failure, or to have failed in my work or role or relational stance. To conceive a child and then learn of his many fetal anomalies resulting in literal death is of course the biggest doozy of fathomable failing -- at least in my book. But is any of this thinking really helpful? No. Not if you want to live happy and upright...

Xavi's birth and death has been gift because it has helped me grieve --quite publicly, transparently, with all of you --all that I haven't been able to fully grieve in my 43 years. (Shoot, the way I live and believe and process -- weeping and simultaneously laughing -- I imagine I might be grieving for a whole host of family members whose stories are stored somewhere in my bones!)  I think of all that is encoded in the cells of my being; I believe that with our son's brief life has come a transformational opportunity to heal wounds that have been debilitating for both me and my husband.

Xavi was born at 8:03 am on Thursday, September 13, 2012. He died at 9:03am.  At around 5:30pm on Friday, September 14, I handed his body over to the mortician who came personally to my room to receive him. During the hours in between, I got to hold his precious body against my own. Breathe him in. Bond as any mother and child do beyond the embrace of womb. And in that time, I got to sigh, laugh, smile, weep, and utter sounds of grief that only feel possible in a primal loss sort of way.  I released sorrow from the very bottom of my soul that I believe could have been stored there for centuries.
Mother.
Dead child.
Arms.
Open mouth.
Ache.

In those hours of holding Xavi's body, I couldn't fathom letting him go to be buried. I had just gotten him; there was no possible way in my mind that anyone could take him from me. I believe with all my heart, this side of the experience, that each hour I held him was akin to a year of my life where I had known loss (shame even?) unprocessed. In all of his precious body was the promise I had clinged to of a career; a new life, a love, a way of leading and inspiring change that I didn't get to see fully realized -- at least not according to my own visions.

Taking Xavier to the hospital chapel and presenting him to God in that formal space was a key point in letting him go. While his spirit was released hours before in his literal death, it took me - as his mom - more than a day to catch up and embrace the way his body could simultaneously go...

With special permission of hospital nurses and security, my friends Brigid and Marianna accompanied me with Xavi in my arms, under a blanket, from the 2nd to the 4th floor. They wheeled us into the chapel and placed me with my son beneath an icon of Mary and Jesus. There, for maybe twenty minutes, a half hour, hour? -  I listened. I sat, cried, giggled, and tuned into the way that I heard Xavi speaking to me, alongside God, reassuring me of a presence beyond this physical realm, experiencing a joy possible only, in my mind, beyond the limitation of our human selves.  I got instructions from my son and God as to what to do next.

In that space, I knew Xavi's spirit beyond the room. I could "see" him as a toddler; then as a four or five year old curly headed wonder, all rough and tumble boy. He was wearing jeans and red sneakers, a striped shirt with numbers. All around him were happy, licking puppies and non-threatening bouncing balls. He was laughing and told me, "Mom, Heaven rocks."  I giggled with these sacred images of son; I still cling to them as inspired, transformational memories that communicate happiness and inform a deep peace in my heart.

When I looked back down at his anointed body resting in my lap, I felt his limbs cool to my touch, and saw his omphalocele pulling back from his skin. His physical self was giving way; and I knew that I didn't have to cling to him in this form.

"I'm here mom, in your heart, in your mind. I do not live in that body. You don't have to let me go, ever, because I'm here."

With that, I knew I could hand over his physical form.

And a month later, I can see that most difficult moment as a graced one guiding me in all of my grief. We receive, we let go. Xavi's life was not to be defined by me, or contained in my human hopes or maternal longings. He came as a gift, not unlike every other gift of Love we have received in our lives. Francois and I had this privilege of conceiving him, of bearing his life, his gentleness, his imperfect perfection -- into this realm. And we are transformed because of the journey.

***

On the anniversary morning that all these thoughts started to take shape, I was giving our two year old daughter a bath. Instead of our ritual wrapped-in-a-duck-towel-snuggling post suds, Marguerite stepped out of the tub and put her hands on my head in a blessing fashion.  Did she hear all of these reflections tumbling around in my heart and mind? Did she sense my desire to honor her brother Xavi with some kind of contemplative prose? Who knows. But Thursday morning, four weeks after her brother's birth and baptism, in all of her own naked wonder, Mags placed her still wet palms on my forehead and said, "Bless you, mamma."

Indeed. I am blessed. We all are. We know such fierce love.

“Spirits” by Birago Diop

Xavier Jean Kiemde, September 13, 2012

The following poem is deeply moving to me. I first heard it in the hospital room on the evening of my son's birth and subsequent passing. My husband and another dear friend from West Africa were reciting it in French. The words ring true to my heart and help me celebrate Xavi's brief, precious life here on earth and his presence still in the spirit realm. I love thinking of him "in the trembling of the trees, in the water that runs..in the bush that is singing, in the voice of the fire" -- as Diop suggests. Amen.

Spirits

by Birago Diop

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the sighs of the bush;
This is the ancestors breathing.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in the darkness that grows lighter
And in the darkness that grows darker.
The dead are not down in the earth;
They are in the trembling of the trees
In the groaning of the woods,
In the water that runs,
In the water that sleeps,
They are in the hut, they are in the crowd:
The dead are not dead.

Listen to things
More often than beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sighing:
This is the breathing of ancestors,
Who have not gone away
Who are not under earth
Who are not really dead.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in a woman’s breast,
In the wailing of a child,
And the burning of a log,
In the moaning rock,
In the weeping grasses,
In the forest and the home.
The dead are not dead.

Listen more often
To Things than to Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind to
The bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors breathing.

Each day they renew ancient bonds,
Ancient bonds that hold fast
Binding our lot to their law,
To the will of the spirits stronger than we
To the spell of our dead who are not really dead,
Whose covenant binds us to life,
Whose authority binds to their will,
The will of the spirits that stir
In the bed of the river, on the banks of the river,
The breathing of spirits
Who moan in the rocks and weep in the grasses.

Spirits inhabit
The darkness that lightens, the darkness that darkens,
The quivering tree, the murmuring wood,
The water that runs and the water that sleeps:
Spirits much stronger than we,
The breathing of the dead who are not really dead,
Of the dead who are not really gone,
Of the dead now no more in the earth.

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors, breathing.

 
Source: The Negritude Poets, ed. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.
 

Teeth

Ms. Kiemde is cutting teeth -- four to be specific. Her top front teeth are coming in, followed by two tiny pearly whites flanking each side. Are they incisors? Eye teeth? I'm not certain of the proper names for these cuspids, but I am certain of what they are inspiring in my almost eleven-month old baby girl. I am observing new behaviors in this child. A new level of cranky. Fiesty. Furious. Feeling her power. Do you remember what your gums cracking open felt like? Having our insides split a bit to make way for new growth: it's difficult. The surface itches, aches, throbs. We bleed when we get new teeth.

I think the same might be said for most developmental processes in all humans. Teething is akin to growing, to adopting new ways of being; it's learning. Just as it is difficult to literally "birth" new teeth, I believe it is as hard for us to make way for any new thing to come forward in our lives. We itch. Ache. Throb. Maybe bleed a bit, too, in some regard.

Today, my prayers are for any and all who are teething - literally and figuratively. I am praying for babies, adults, teens, elders. I am holding images of new cuspids and precious gums in my child's mouth along with the way I am learning to practice being calm when I'm angry; a smile and deep breath are often just as difficult to come forward as these teeth.

I hope this finds you with patience for all that is trying to break the surface; I send good thoughts for all that is trying to emerge and become a helpful, visible new part of your being.

Happy Contemplating!
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde,
Visitation Companion,
Mom, Wife, Lover, Writer, Contemplative at Work

The Baptism of Marguerite Marie Kiemde: Annointing Love "Priest, Prophet, King!"

Some days being Catholic is tough. Claiming membership in a larger faith community that's hard on women, diminishes gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and has a whole bunch of scandal stemming from a secretive, hierarchical male-dominated structure where sex abuse of children has taken place: Ah! Please! It makes me want to run. But this is my church. This is the community of humans and traditions and rituals and beliefs I was born into that I find, at its core, is the best Love-Mystery-Truth-Transformation-thing going. So I stay in the church with my husband, and I work to create and see realized the kind of faith community that I want to be part of.

Enter: Marguerite Marie Kiemde's Baptism! On Sunday, August 8, 2010, François, big sister Gabby and I, along with our larger catholic faith community at the Church of St. Philips in North Minneapolis, welcomed our baby girl into this fold. And it was a blessed and inspiring experience -- reaffirming my own baptismal call to love and live within a human community, consciously seeing the Divine Light of Love within all.

What follows are photos taken by our dear friends Brian Mogren and Michael Benham. We hope they convey a fraction of the Spirit and promise that we experienced on Sunday, and that the captions might hint at what were the most inspiring elements of the day for me.

Enjoy!
Love,
Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde and Family

Presiding guest priest number one from the University of St. Thomas
(There were four priests on the alter this day.
Perhaps to top the three presiding at our wedding? Or to witness Ms. Maggie's welcoming?
*chuckle*
Blessings! )

Pre-service picture snapping

Baby K gets shy?

Our Kiemde Clan: François, Melissa, Marguerite, Gabriela

Putting on the baptismal bonnet

Tuning into the baptismal rite

Fr. Jules Omba Omalanga begins the ritual

The St. Philip's Kids Choir, lead by Nadege Ouevi, sings to welcome in Marguerite Marie

Getting her rest in before the big moment
(And completing a bowel movement?
This child will go to baptism in the fullness of her blessed humanity!
God loves us in all of our stinkiness. :-))

Tracing the sign of the cross

I cannot be any more pleased to hold this child and participate in this liturgy.

How beautiful are these young people?
A key part of this service for me centers around hearing the voices of children singing.
A choir that Marguerite will be part of - someday!

Annointed "Priest, Prophet and King!" Yes!
Hope in our church.
(Can you imagine our daughter's future?
Your own in any faith community?)

In the arms of Godmother Marianna Toth

Love.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Embracing the Light!
(A favorite moment in the service,
when François puts the candle in our littlest girl's hands,
and she won't let go.)

What do they see? So many precious eyes!
Including photographer Michael Benham

Singing "Wade in the Water."

Melissa's spiritual director, Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM
(Another honorary Godmother.)

Dear friend, Vis Companion, photographer, Brian Mogren

Toni and Geert Bennaars-Mawanda

From Left to Right: Godfather Zac Willette, Godmother Marianna Toth, Gabby Kiemde, François Kiemde, Melissa and daughter Marguerite Kiemde

Welcomed into this larger faith family of priests, prophets, kings, queens, and lots of nuns!
Left to Right: Marianna, Zac, Gabby, François, Melissa and Maggie, Sr. Mary Frances, VHM; Sr. Jill Underdahl, CSJ; Sr. Joanna O'Meara, VHM; Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM; Sr. Mary Virginia, VHM; Sr. Karen, VHM; and Sr. Jean.

And again: In full color!
Left to Right: Marianna, Zac, Gabby, François, Melissa and Maggie, Sr. Mary Frances, VHM; Sr. Jill Underdahl, CSJ; Sr. Joanna O'Meara, VHM; Sr. Mary Margaret, VHM; Sr. Mary Virginia, VHM; Sr. Karen, VHM; and Sr. Jean

Another new member of the catholic community at St. Philip's:
Nina Nakagaki!

Maggie recognizes someone with her kind of humor: a goofy Michael Benham.

Embraced and smiling by her Visitation Sister, Mary Virginia

Singing and faith ensemble sisters Toni, Ann, Melissa with babies Geert and Maggie

New moms in the community: Can we trace the cultural lines present in this photograph?
There's a child here born in Guatemala; another of Ugandan/Kenyan/Dutch descent; one hailing from Asian-Nebraskan parents; and finally a West African-European-Midwestern American infant.

LOVE!