Nancy's favorite hymn,
"Amazing Grace,"
was what she wanted sung
at her funeral.

Several days after her death
the family sat down
with a patient funeral director
to settle on the details.

"No," my father said,
"That's such a cliche;
there are better hymns."

No doubt there are,
and no doubt my father
had his own issue with this one.
Maybe he didn't like calling himself a "wretch"…
or maybe he did.
Or maybe he wasn't ready
to have his freshly-mangled heart
jerked out of his chest for all to see,
which is what a hymn like "Amazing Grace"
can do to you.

One of us
(I don't recall whom)
gently said,
"Dad, it's not your funeral, it's Nancy's.
At your funeral, we'll sing your favorite hymn;
at Nancy's funeral, we'll sing hers."

And so we did:
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
was blind, but now I see."

Text, image and audio © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved. 

To listen to this poem, Download Amazing Grace 1