Today I went to the funeral of a man who lived in the parish in San Francisco where I studied as a novice. The Mass was a simple and beautiful testimony to a loving dad and family man who lived a good long life and now has gone on to heaven "filled with our love" as the program said. One of the blessings of wakes and funerals is that they call us to revisit places we once worked and lived and prayed. Most of us move about so frequently within the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, that it is hard for us to build the kind of lifelong friendships that these dear old parishioners know. To me it is so touching to meet people who have been friends and neighbors for over 50 years, whose children and grandchildren now are friends. The homily was sincerely affectionate and filled with the kind of tender insights a priest can only have when he has known the family through thick and thin times. The testimony given by the man's grand daughter gave us glimpses into the life of a family man growing up in Italy and San Francisco from 1922 to 2010. This is the kind of old neighborhood many of us remember fondly and long for even though we many not be Italian. We all had them, German, French, Mexican, Irish, Russian, Polish, even English immigrants. We still have that desire for connectedness in the neighborhoods where we live in now but it is harder to find it, harder to build it. There are places we might find it in a parish, a coffee shop and a family business, but we have to look past all the chain stores and evangelical entertainment centers to find it. The closing song, Al di là, must have been the favorite love song of this man and wife when they were young. Now the husband has gone to heaven and his tearful wife is surrounded by neighbors who know how much she will miss him. How blessed she is to have this neighborhood to keep her memories alive and well. My sisters and I didn't know what the words to the song meant, but we could tell it was a love song. I looked the words up and now I like it even more! Here they are for when you are mourning someone a loved one who has gone beyond:
Italian
Al di là
Non credevo possibile,
Se potessero dire queste parole:
Al di lá del bene più prezioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá del sogno più ambizioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá delle cose più belle.
Al di lá delle stelle, ci sei tu.
Al di lá, ci sei tu per me, per me, soltanto per me.
Al di lá del mare più profondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá de i limiti del mondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá della volta infinita, al di la della vita.
Ci sei tu, al di la, ci sei tu per me.
La la la la la...
La la la...
(Ci sei tu...)
English
Beyond
I couldn't believe it was possible
For these words to be said:
Beyond the most precious good, there you are.
Beyond the most ambitious dream, there you are.
Beyond the most beautiful things, there you are.
Beyond the stars, there you are.
Beyond, there you are for me, for me, just for me.
Beyond the deepest sea, there you are.
Beyond the borders of the world, there you are.
Beyond the infinite vault (=the sky), beyond life.
There you are, beyond, there you are for me.
la la la...
(There you are).
