Pauper's Graveside Service

As a bagpiper I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at the graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the Kentucky backcountry.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost. I finally arrived an hour late, and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone, and the hearse was nowhere in site - there were only the diggers and the crew left, and they were eating lunch. I felt bad and apologized to the men for being late.

I went to the side of the grave and looked down at the vault - lead was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather round. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family or friends. I played like I’d never played before for this homeless man. And as I played “Amazing Grace”, the workers began to weep. They wept. I wept. We all wept together.

When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say to another, “Never seen nothing like that before, and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

QuotaBills

All who have died are equal. - Comanche Proverb

Nobody ever died of laughter. - Max Beerbohm

Love is a grave mental disease. - Plato

Biography lends to death a new terror. - Oscar Wilde

I buried a lot of my ironing in the back yard. - Phyllis Diller

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths. - Julius Caesar

Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death. - Unknown

Men must have legends, else they will die of strangeness. - Les A Murray

If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live. - James Baldwin

Kind words will never die - neither will they buy groceries. - Bill Nye

What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country. - Joseph Addison

It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees. - Emiliano Zapata

He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death. - H.H. Munro

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. - John Donne

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing. - Vincent van Gogh

Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn. - Fulton J. Sheen

Death twitches my ear. "Live," he says; "I am coming." - Virgil

We have art so that we do not die of reality. Reality is too much with us. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

You're born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there's a loophole. - Billy Graham

I know we're going to die. But some of us are going to do something about it. - Tom Burnett

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. - Mark Twain

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. - Lanston Hughes

Our marriage vows: till death do us part, for better for worse, in secrets and in health. - Archie Bunker

The Irish don't know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it. - Sidney Littlewood

Death is the last enemy; once we've got past that I think everything will be all right. - Alice Thomas Ellis

The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven't seen the joke yet. - Oliver Herford

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation. - Oscar Wilde

Melbourne is the kind of town that really makes you consider the question, "Is there life after death?" - Bette Midler

The fence around a cemetery is foolish, for those inside can't come out and those outside don't want to get it. - Arthur Brisbane

The courtrooms of America all too often have Piper Cub advocates trying to handle the controls of Boeing 747 litigation. - Warren E. Burger

When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, it's your moral right. - Ravi Zacharias

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. - C S Lewis

Success is like death. The more successful you become, the higher the houses in the hills get and the higher the fences get. - Kevin Spacey

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success. - Stephen Covey

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest. - Tahir Shah

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. - Ernest Hemingway

We are all the fools of time and terror: Days Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. - George Gordon Byron

We do not attach any intrinsic value to the Cross; this would be sinful and idolatrous. Our veneration is referred to Him who died upon it. - James Gibbons

If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind... for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour. - Fanny Crosby

When I came back to Dublin, I was courtmartialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. - Brendan Behan

13-Jul-2020