A life, called Bobby Mitchell

I used to maintain that you officially became part of a community when you attended the funeral of a friend in that place.

A few weeks back, I attended my first Las Cruces funeral.

The service was graveside at dusty, grassless Doña Ana Cemetery, high on a hill in the Chihuahuan Desert, with mountains at the horizon all around. To the east, you could hear the screams and laughter of children on recess at a nearby elementary school. In the distance to the west, you could hear the periodic crowing of a rooster. A dull buzz from traffic on Interstate 25 was barely audible.

Bobby Mitchell's body lay in a plain pine box, the heat of the New Mexican sun blazing down on the casket as well as the guests, which included a young black hipster, an old black Muslim, at least three people in Converse All-Stars (surprisingly none of them were me), some in suits and ties (thankfully none of them were me), people ranging in age from 3 months to 85 years, white, Hispanic, bikers, priests, healthy and infirm. Some tried to catch some shade from the few haggard trees. Wisely, there was an Igloo water cooler set up on a table, with those paper cone cups available.

The service was performed in the B'ha'i faith, the way Bobby Mitchell chose to worship God. It was beautiful, with wonderful prayers and chants. One of his four sons, Nathan, decked out in an ugly green T-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, played Amazing Grace on the flute. A variety of friends and family spoke of the life of this odd, eclectic man.

The service opened with Nathan reciting one of Bobby's poems, entitled The Question May Now Be Asked:

The question may now be asked;
Are there assholes in heaven?
After all, everybody's got one;
Or been one
At one time or another ...
- Bobby Mitchell, Oct. 15, 1985

Later, someone read a scripture from Abdu'l Baha, which described the afterlife in heaven with the best analogy I'd ever heard. It went like this:

To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes, is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage, and the spirit is like the bird. ...therefore if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist: its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased.

I cannot accurately call Bobby Mitchell my friend; we only met on a couple of occasions. But we were (are?) kindred spirits. He founded the Otero County Martin Luther King Jr. Committee and was its first chairman. I have been chair of the same organization since 2003.

Oddly, though, after seeing the people react to him at the funeral, only now do I really feel like I know him. And I'm much better for it.