One of my aunts, Kate Minar, died last March, a few weeks away from her 82nd birthday. She was a nun for over 50 years and lived at Assisi Heights in Rochester, Minnesota, which is the motherhouse for the Sisters of St. Francis.
Kate was the second-oldest of seven Minar kids, and when I went to the funeral, all my mom’s living siblings were there: four other sisters and a brother. Nine Minar children were born to Kate’s parents, my grandparents, on the family farm in southern Minnesota, with two untimely deaths.
During the chapel service, stained glass and marble echoed each voice and movement as my mom and a couple of her sisters told their favorite stories about Kate: her devotion to the Minnesota Twins, their travels to national parks, her signature homemade cards with photos of her flowers. Afterward, we went via caravan to the nearby cemetery. Each of the nuns at Assisi Heights is cremated when they die, and their urns are buried in small plots with uniform gravestones.
It was chilly. The sun was out and the funeral group sang hymns together and took turns scooping handfuls of dried roses into the grave. Though Kate’s siblings don’t speak to one another regularly, and disputes and hurt feelings and illnesses and old age have gotten in the way of their once-close bond, they were all in attendance, some with their children and grandchildren, one tuning in over Zoom. The Minars had regrouped, as if no time had passed since my father’s funeral in 2005, or my aunt Barb’s in 2009, or my grandmother’s in 2013.
I’d never been to a funeral quite like this, where we each contributed something to the grave. It made it seem possible that grieving could be nourishing. Joining the ritual of death made me less fearful of it. It’s like it all made sense.
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