Orla's Farewell
I remember going to see Orla shortly after she got news of her diagnosis that the cancer was back. She was getting me a cup of tea in the kitchen in ‘Green Ivies’ while she cleared a cat off the counter and gave off to a dog. She paused and looked straight at me and said, ‘Well I can either fight this or go and jump off the nearest cliff.’ Fighting for Orla meant living a normal life, not allowing the illness (which she knew full well was serious) to totally dominate her life.
Today family and friends gather here in St Mary’s Church for her funeral. Funerals are occasions of sadness for they mark the loss of one we have loved, who has loved us. Their parting leaves a gap in our lives that no-one else can fill in quite the same way. They are also occasions to celebrate the life, the love, the energy of the one who has died.
In time she met Francis Ennis. They married and set up home and reared their five daughters, Stephanie, Sarah, Suzanne, Niamh and Nicola. The family was at the heart of her life. She might scold, she might give off but she was always there to help, to encourage, fiercely proud of all they achieved. There is no doubt she will be sorely missed.
We come to set the mystery of death in the context of our Christian faith. Here in Church we celebrate the great festivals that celebrate the great events of our faith, the goodness of God, the love of God. And here we mark the great events of life; we celebrate births, the love that leads on to marriage; here we seek strength and comfort in the face of the uncertainties of life, of illness and death.
What we are declaring today is that darkness has not had the last word in the life of Orla Ennis. Sickness, weakness has not had the final say. Her body may be spent but Orla lives on. In fellowship with the Apostle John, we follow a Lord who knows what death, what suffering, what loss is all about; one who knew what it was like to weep at the grave of his friend Lazarus. Not only that, he is the one who was raised triumphant over death, breaking the power of death itself.
Having grown up in Howth, with a love of sailing and of the sea, I find this poem a lovely expression for our hope for Orla and for ourselves expressed in the sailing traditions of this place.
A Parable of Immortality. I am standing by the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, ‘There she goes! ‘ Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the places of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!’, there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout : ‘Here she comes!’