When the music stops

There was music. Services for Bill and Jan Reed began with a group of Sisters musicians playing live music. On a day under a hot sun with a breeze that teased butterflies from fingertips of children reaching for them in the grass, first there was music and then there were words, words about these lives from those that knew and loved and were touched by them.

Those words were music too.

Words of lives well-lived and well-loved. Through words we saw them at play and work, her dazzling smile, giving to their friends and the community, and we saw that the rhythms of life are not permanent but love is timeless. Love of each other and of family shaped them and reshaped those who knew them. Through music and words this was their celebration, though so much sadness is felt by so many.

Speaking for the family from her wheelchair, their daughter, Ashley, reminded us not only to love but to express love, because we don’t know when the dance will end. She was speaking to all of us, to everyone; she spoke for them.

They’ve left an imprint on Sisters, a legacy that many see only with their absence, in this sudden silence, still listening for their melody. It is too hard to think of them gone. In Sisters the music has stopped for awhile.

But Jan and Bill knew that the music always starts up again. And on a hot day with flowers and tents when we said goodbye, they would have smiled and enjoyed the music and their family and their many friends, and laughed with the children catching butterflies in the sun.

Eric Dolson, Publisher