A Eulogy For Brunhilda, A Loved Trombone

Today we feel as if we are nose diving towards a chasm filled with the grief and pain of loss, each feeling as if there is no Brunhilda here to rescue us. But she's here with us today, she's here in the memories of each that are gathered. Right now we all feel as if we're walking through an unharvested corn maze, a fog covered forest, a pitch black tunnel. When she was here, not once were we ever left to get through life on our own, she was always there to wield the scythe to slash down the stalks, to hold our hands as we navigated the unknown bog and pick us up when we tripped over entangling roots, to point us to the light of an opening. Yes, time with her was short, but perhaps that was a gift. If we had thought that we would have her forever then we wouldn't have cherished time with her as closely. Her loving personality would have gone unappreciated. Her sweet sounding voice wouldn't have been treasured so deeply. She wouldn't have been loved so closely. Words cannot describe the pain the world must endure now that Brunhilda is gone, but asking for words to explain pain this deep is like trying to understand a foreign language. Her independence emitted from her the way heat comes off of a fire. The way dancing flames enticed a mind into wanting nothing more than to stick one's hand into it's glowing embers, she became a magnet pulling closer our hearts made of iron. Like a broken record player, my mind replays the same image of her. The sunlight glinted off of her, sending a cascade of golden beams to fall through the air, the same way her dulcet voice was able to lure every particle floating in the air to hover just a moment, so that each may grasp onto such beauty, in hopes of using her melodic lines as a parachute to land softly in the green grass below. This will be the Brunhilda that lives forever, in each of our minds.