Wiping the Death

         On our way to Alabama last Saturday for a storytelling festival in Troy, Mike and I listened to NPR for a while on the radio in the truck but eventually changed the station to the Beatles. All Beatles all the time. And whenever we listen to the Beatles station, I invariably flash back to a memory from junior high.

         I was in eighth grade when Eleanor Rigby was released as a single and played on the local AM radio in Buffalo. And one day, a classmate who was a year younger and rode my bus asked me a question about the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby as she sat beside me for the ride home from school.

         “Is Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave? Or is Father McKenzie wiping the death from his hands as he walks from the grave?” The serious look on her face as she asked is etched into my brain as much as the image of death being brushed off one’s shoe is forever in my memories begging the question, death or dirt? I had assumed the word was dirt, but when she asked, I had to think about it, I couldn’t say it was definitely dirt. And that got me to listening extra hard to the lyrics every time I have heard that song in the many many years since.

         Of course, in today’s world there does not have to be a question about song lyrics. One can just Google the song title, and the words appear. Father McKenzie wiped the dirt from his hands as he walked from the grave. Alas, finally knowing the answer is somehow not as satisfying as carrying around the question.

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