When Dwight and I were in graduate school, we had a mutual friend, Mark Achtemeier, whom I knew because Mark and I were teaching assistants for some of the same classes, and whom Dwight knew because he and Mark had library study carrels next to each other and used to throw wadded-up paper at each other over the carrel dividers. Before he was a doctoral student Mark was a Presbyterian pastor, and after he earned his degree he spent a number of years teaching at a Presbyterian seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, where he still lives. Mark and his wife, Kat, visited us at the cabin on at least one occasion, and so they felt like part of our life in Iowa as well as part of our life at Duke.

Mark A. (as I will call him here, to avoid confusion with our Mark) is now more than ever a part of our life in Iowa, as he officiated at Dwight’s burial service this afternoon. In the morning Mark A. and I, along with Kurt and Cathy (Dwight’s brother and sister-in-law), had brunch at a café in Mount Vernon. Shrimp and grits was on the menu, and is what Dwight would certainly have ordered, had he been there. How could I not order it myself? (Cathy had it, too.) Mmmmm. Of course we accompanied it with lots of stories about Dwight.

While we were eating shrimp and grits in Mount Vernon, everyone else was enjoying breakfast and conversation at the local motel, where they had all spent the night. We went back and met them there, and eventually it was time to go to the cemetery. The weather forecast had been for 95 degrees and humid, but the day turned out about fifteen degrees cooler than that. Then in the morning it had looked stormy, but that passed, and by the time we got to the cemetery it was just a beautiful summer day.

The grave had been dug, and the funeral director was there with a little table for the urn, which Dwight’s parents had brought with them (they had kept it overnight in their hotel room). We had also brought along a vase of flowers, one of two that a local florist had supplied for our gathering last night. We handed round the vase and everyone took a flower, and then it was time for the service. Of course I can’t remember now anything that Mark A. said; only that it was all perfect. I do remember that he read from Isaiah 40, because this is the text from which I had chosen a few words to be engraved on Dwight’s gravestone:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD
will renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

When it was time for the committal, Dwight’s father put the urn into the cremation vault (a kind of plastic box required by Iowa law). The funeral director sealed the box, and then Mark (our Mark) lay down on the ground and lowered the vault into the grave. Mark A. said the last words of the service, and then each of us laid our flower on Dwight’s gravestone (which had been set in place last week so that those who came to the burial could see it).

None of us really wanted to leave, so we stood around the grave and sang another couple of old Swedish hymns. We had sung “Day by Day and with Each Passing Moment” and “Children of the Heavenly Father” as part of the service (both of these were sung at our wedding and at Dwight’s funeral, so of course we had to sing them at the burial, too), but the song sheets I had brought had “Thy Holy Wings, Dear Savior” and “Thanks to God for My Redeemer” on the other side, so we sang these, too.

Eventually it really was time to go, so we got into cars and drove to the Methodist church, where several of the church ladies had arranged a reception, complete with three kinds of pie (strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry, and chocolate cream). A few more local friends were at the reception, but mostly it was an opportunity for all the family and out-of-town friends to sit and eat and talk and spend just a little more time together before getting on the road back to Illinois and Minnesota and Wisconsin and Missouri and Michigan.

So now we are done. Dwight is buried, we have all said our goodbyes, and now it is time for whatever comes next—which of course includes missing Dwight forever.

And yes, it is time for me to be done with writing CaringBridge. I owe a debt of everlasting gratitude to the friend, Beth Linnartz, who suggested I begin this journal. I would never have imagined it would prove so important a means of fostering the community that supported Dwight and all of us through the past several years. Thank you all for reading, and for accompanying us along this road.