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

Die young as late as possible. - Ashley Montagu

Under this sod lies another one. - Unknown

If you give up your dreams, you die. - Flashdance

Leave the dead moments to bury the dead. - E R Bulwer-Lytton

Biography is one of the new terrors of death. - John Arbuthnot

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

No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me. - Thomas Beecham

Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names. - Danish Proverb

There is no cure for death, save to enjoy the interval. - George Santayana

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Drown in a vat of whiskey? Oh death, where is thy sting? - WC Fields

In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Memorial Service: Farewell party for someone who has already left. - Robert Byrne

When you've heard one bagpipe tune, you've heard them both. - Jack Finney

It is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football. - John Heisman

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

You're going to the cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian. - Robin Williams

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. - Rodney Dangerfield

Men, remember there is no retreat from here. You must die where you stand. - Colin Campbell

The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come. - Lee Iacocca

Santanism: The belief that when you die, your soul gets stuck in the chimney - Daffynitions joe-ks.com

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them - but not for love. - William Shakespeare

Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world. - Mark Twain

The greatest thing in life is to die young - but delay it as long as possible. - George Bernard Shaw

Why are we scared to die? Do any of us remember being scared when we were born? - Trevor Kay

Grave: A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student - Daffynitions joe-ks.com

I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire

Any actress who appears in public without being well-groomed is digging her own grave. - Joan Crawford

For us humans, everything is permanent - until it changes, as we are immortal until we die. - Malcolm Muggeridge

Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical. - Mark Batterson

My Uncle Sammy was an angry man. He had printed on his tombstone: 'What are you looking at?' - Margaret Smith

There's a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die: their silence. - Ben Hecht

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there. - Colonel Harland Sanders

I felt an earnest and humble desire, and I shall do it till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. - Charles Dickens

As a family we couldn't decide whether to have Grandma buried or cremated, so in the end we decided to let her live. - Gary Delaney

Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die;
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. - Alfred Tennyson

It's a good thing we have gravity or else when birds died they'd just stay right up there. Hunters would be all confused. - Steven Wright

Doctors are saying that each piece of bacon you eat takes 9 minutes off of your life. Based on that math, I should have died in 1732. - Unknown

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can't change. After I die, I'll probably come back as a paintbrush. - Sylvester Stallone

Today is yesterday's victory, yesterday is tomorrow's conquest, and tomorrow is today's war. Though I face death, I am not fearsome. - Nadège Richards

07-Dec-2021