More tragedy in the midst of celebration

Grace and greetings.

It has been a long time since I have posted anything here. It has been a wild a crazy summer, I will try and fill in the past in the next few post. Part of my own personal problem is that I write my post in my mind, but want to post with pictures. But I do not have the pictures I want, so I put off writing the post. So I am back to writing the post and worry about pictures later.

The spring whale harvest was very poor this year, so the fall whaling season was looking for better results. The spring season is usually the big hunt, but this year only four whales were caught. So when the fall whaling started last Saturday, the first three days caught ten whales, and lost one of the twelve possible strikes. (The whalers are allowed 26 "strikes" each year for the eight villages here in the North Slope. A strike is one shot; it would be like having only 26 arrows, if one misses, you lose). So people were feeling pretty good with the whale hunts...

Last Monday, on the way to school, two four year old girls fell through the ice while walking across the lagoon. Once they were discovered, they were not able to revive them, even though they tried all the way to Anchorage.

With the families traveling to Anchorage, and me sick all last week, I was still not sure who the families were, or who was going to officiate the funerals. Part of my problem, was that nobody ever contacted me. As it turns out, the aunt of one of the two girls, contacted her pastor, rather than me, who probably should have been contacted. As it turns out, the mothers' are cousins, so the two girls grew up together.

I met with the families the night before the funeral. Though I was still not sure, I recognized the parents, but not sure of their relationship to the church. We planned the service with the pastor that was first contacted preaching and me officiating the service.

During the visitation, one of the uncles came up to me to comment that the wedding that I officiated only five weeks ago, one of the girls was the flower girl that I carried down the isle at the end of the wedding service. So I probably had met both girls...

Like in life, the two girls were buried in the same grave site together, in different caskets, to remain forever side by side.

Peace and blessings.