On the death of a child

 I had planned to write a humorous post, but a tragedy in the extended family makes it hard to laugh or play today. Over the weekend the 20-year-old son of my daughter-in-law’s sister was killed in a motorcycle accident. We are related to this family through kinship ties and friendship. The parents are childhood friends of our son, and we are close to his grandparents.

The news has shocked us all, but especially Malachi’s parents and sisters. Our son David, on a teaching assignment in Bolivia, has cancelled the rest of his trip and is currently on a complicated airplane route home—five airports with three-hours layovers in four of them. But it’s that important that he be here to comfort and offer whatever help he can.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child, even an adult child. Our friends adopted this boy as a baby, receiving him into their arms at the Portland Airport, fresh from Africa. They accepted him into their family, loved him, and raised him to manhood. They suffered through all the common traumas involved with bringing up a child (and some uncommon ones, too), and delighted in his different developmental stages and steps forward.

And now this. A friend who lost a son in his 40s several years ago shared her sense of how unnatural it feels that your offspring should die before you do. It seems that way to me, too.

But like I say, I can hardly imagine the pain and loss. I’ve never experienced it, other than in my nightmares.

And now—how to comfort? How to pray? What to do that might make any difference? My kids are going to just be with them—and cook meals, do the laundry, things like that. But mainly to be there and cry alongside them. Maybe that’s the most helpful thing, I’m guessing.

Words fail me. Not even knowing how to pray, I’m turning to some written prayers of the church, some ancient, some more recent. As part of the Quaker Church, we don’t go in for liturgy, and maybe that’s our loss. I find that the deeply thought-out and crafted prayers by women and men who know God are very helpful. Many of them have passed the test of time and have encouraged, delighted, and comforted people like us for ages. They supply words when I am groping. Here are some I am using today:

From The Book of Common Prayer: Grant, O Lord, to all who are bereaved the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience; not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. And this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

From the Celtic Daily Prayer book:

This night and every night
seems infinite with questions,
and sleep as elusive
as answers.

Pain and longing are always present,
dulled only a little
by the distractions of the day.
I am weary; I am angry;
I am confused.

Circle me, Lord.
Keep despair and disillusion without.
Bring a glimmer of hope within.

Circle me, Lord;
keep nightmare without.
Bring moments of rest.

Circle me, Lord;
keep bitterness without.
Bring an occasional sense
of Your presence within.

From Every Moment Holy by Douglas McKelvey

Remain with me, my God.
For you are not aloof from what I feel.
You also lost a child. Your sympathy is real.
Be near to me, O Christ, for you were also
crushed by every grief and afflicted with every affliction.
You were a man of sorrows. Somehow, in this,
I find a hope rekindled.
I am not alone in this. My God has gone before me,
into suffering, grief, death, loss, and separation.
Where I am, you have already been.
And you are with me in this now.
I would follow you, even in this.
Especially in this, I would follow you.

Lord, hear us when we pray. Amen

Pilgrims in old age

 Even when death is expected, it can arrive with a shock. The finality of it. The sense of loss. Even for those of us who believe that death is not the final chapter, it’s a door that shuts, leaving us on one side, our loved one on the other.

I recently learned of the death of a dear friend, Michael Graves. I’m holding it in my heart, and it weighs me down. It’s heavy. It leaves me emotionally breathless.

It was not unexpected. For the last several years Michael has been fighting a losing battle with dementia. It’s been hard to watch his personality slipping away, his sharp wit growing dull. Wondering when he’ll stop knowing who I am. (That part never happened, thank God.) And recently a stroke, along with his long-term diabetes, robbed him of his last defenses.

Yesterday Hal and I gathered with some of his long-time friends just to sit around talking, remembering, crying, laughing, praying. It helped to reaffirm our basic belief that Michael is now being welcomed into his heavenly home, into the arms of Jesus, and then embraced by a host of those who have gone before. It helped as we assured each other that the real Michael is back, whole, holy, and full of joy. It’s a vision I’ll hold onto this week and into the future.

He's been on a long pilgrimage and he’s now come home.

My memories are becoming full of Michael as I knew him best over the last 50 years. He brought together so many facets of being human. He was a gifted sought-out university professor of communications. He was an academic, writing scholarly papers, presenting them in conferences, and loving it. He was a very funny man, witty in conversation, sharp in come-backs. He was creative—writing poetry, playing his banjo and singing, acting, problem-solving. I remember fondly our weekly poetry group where the six of us critiqued and affirmed each other; he was good at both.

I remember Michael always in company with Darlene. We were saying yesterday that’s it’s almost impossible to say “Michael” by itself. It’s always “Michael and Darlene.” As couples, we spent many hours in deep conversations and prayer, as well as play. We’re all asking how we can best support Darlene now. She lives in another state and travel is difficult for all of us these days. Prayers and phone calls somehow don’t seem enough. We’ll have to trust God to show us. At a basic level, she has to walk this path alone. But, maybe at a more basic level, her community can walk it with her.

We feel consoled by the fact that, even as Michael’s mind was slipping away, he became increasingly sweeter, almost docile, to those around him, especially Darlene. Although in his life he had been, at times, a fiery passionate person (never docile!), an innate kindness and sensitivity came forth as dominant in his last years. An incredible blessing. I imagine Michael now as still kind and sensitive, but also more fiery, creative, and passionate than ever. A complete person.

The message in church yesterday centered on Psalm 84 and the idea of our pilgrimage toward knowing God. I’ve been connecting it to Michael’s death and to the experience of growing older in general. Here’s the section that speaks to me now:

   Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
   As they pass through the Valley of Baca [suffering], they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
   They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.” (Psalm 84:5-7)

The idea of life as a pilgrimage runs throughout the Bible, as well as in Christian literature (note John Bunyon’s The Pilgrim’s Progress). The word pilgrimage includes the sense of journey or travel as well as the fact of a destination. It’s not a wandering in the wilderness, although it may feel like that at times. According to Psalm 84, it’s journey that passes through hard places like the Valley of Baca (the Valley of the Shadow of Death in Psalm 23). And it leads to a destination: “before God in Zion.” The City of Zion is one of the names for heaven. The point is more in the phrase “before God” than in the name of the place. God is the destination.

Although the whole of life is a pilgrimage, I’m seeing the stage of growing old as a pilgrimage in its own right. It’s a phase of life full of unknowns. The path goes through inevitable valleys of suffering and loss. Sometimes it feels like that’s the whole of it: losing a career; downsizing; the diminishment of the body as we wonder, “What will go wrong next?”; the ever-present possibility of dementia; and on and on. I wonder how the phrase, “They go from strength to strength,” fits in with growing older. Physically, I know I am going from weakness to weakness, and at times it distresses me. Where is this “place of springs”?

There are sign-posts along the way: the retirement party; social security and Medicare; moving to a retirement community; the increasing number of medical specialists and medications; the loss of companions through death; the loss of the ability to remember names (and what we did yesterday); and many more that all tell us, “You’re old now.”

Reading through Psalm 84 and letting it soak in, I’m seeing death as a sign-post. The final sign-post. It’s not the destination or the end of our journey. It’s perhaps the portal we pass through to reach the end of our pilgrimage. A sign-post that seems negative (the final enemy) but that leads to life.

Maybe all the other sign-posts in the pilgrimage of growing older have their secret positive side. Maybe in some real sense we can go from strength to strength, ever as our bodies and our social roles weaken. Maybe we occupy a privileged place in life’s journey, closer to the end of the pilgrimage. Closer to a new beginning.

I hope to see Michael again when I arrive.

Something to think about.

1976

1984

2013 ?

2023

Liturgy for missing someone

 A good friend died yesterday. This is a common experience here in the retirement community. But it doesn’t seem at all common, ordinary, or even acceptable when it happens to someone we love. And even though as Christians we know that this beloved person is rejoicing in God’s presence, our joy and gratitude are tempered with sorrow. It’s as though something bright, beautiful, and good has gone out of our lives. We—I—miss her.

I didn’t have a long-time friendship with Marcile. I admired her from a distance and then, a few years ago, I invited her to share a meal and we enjoyed our conversation so much we decided to keep it up. We shared many meals in the dining room and good conversations in her apartment. We talked about our families, our marriages, our struggles, growing older, and the books we were reading. She loved to read. We found mutual joy in our friendship. Words I would use to describe Marcile are gentleness, kindness, compassion, and encouragement.

We learn, somewhat, to accept death as a part of life. Belief in God’s grace in giving eternal life helps. Life goes on, and so do we. Yet I find that with some people, I continue to carry a certain sadness with me. They played such an important role in my life that I don’t get over missing them. I don’t call it sorrow, but rather a gentle, wistful sense of gratitude. Bill, Anita, Arthur, Mom, Dad—thank you, thank you, thank you.

Of course, the “bright, beautiful, and good” has not disappeared from my life. God promises that his goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. Jesus preached from the passage in Isaiah where God promises his people that he will “comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning….” (Isaiah 61; Luke 4)

I love Douglas McKelvey’s book of liturgical prayers, Every Moment Holy (vol. 3), for times of death, grief, and hope. The “Liturgy for Missing Someone” focuses on the redemptive, transforming aspects of grief that God works out in our lives. I quote part of this prayer:

 

A Liturgy for Missing Someone

O Father,

You created our hearts for unbroken fellowship.
Yet the constraints of time and place, and the
stuttering rhythms of life in a fallen world dictate
that all fellowships in these days will at times be broken
or incomplete. We acknowledge, O Lord, that it is
a right and a good thing to miss deeply those whom
we love but with whom we cannot be physically present….

Therefore we praise you even for our sadness,
knowing that the sorrows we steward in this life
will in time be redeemed….

Use even this sadness to carve out spaces in our souls
where still greater repositories of holy affection
might be held, unto the end that we might better love,
in times of absence and in times of presence alike.
We now entrust all to your keeping.

May our reunion be joyous, whether in this life
of in the life to come.
How we look forward, O Lord, to the day
when all our fellowships will be restored,
eternal and unbroken.

Amen.

(From Every Moment Holy, Vol. III, Douglas McKelvey)

Goodbye, Marcile. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The cold of spring--on the death of a friend

 A dear friend died last week. Her death didn’t shock anyone; we’d been watching and waiting for several months. Hospice joined the team a few weeks ago and we knew our time with her was precious.

Harriet was 104 years old when she died. For most of the last seven years since we became friends, she was mobile (if a bit slow), alert, curious, and possessing a great gift of friendship. I benefitted from that gift.

We first met seven years ago in the retirement community’s health center. We were both there to get our flu shots. We introduced ourselves and began talking. Shots finished, the nurse suggested I accompany Harriet back to her room as she was visually impaired. I was certainly willing to slowly guide this dear blind lady, but I soon discovered how mistaken my perspective was. Without a cane or walker, and with vision that was blurry at best, this lady knew how to maneuver the halls and elevators of this building. She had all the routes memorized. And she did it briskly. So, instead of “helping” Harriet I walked alongside and enjoyed extending our conversation.

When we got to her door, she invited me to come back another time so we could continue getting to know each other. I took her up on it and thus began a rich and delightful friendship. We decided we were “kindred spirits” (shades of Anne of Green Gables). It was true.

Mostly we talked. We shared life-stories. I loved hearing about her growing-up years as a missionary kid in the Philippines, her adjustment challenges moving back to the US, and her adventures in marriage, child-rearing, and as a kindergarten teacher.

Harriet was a good listener as well as a good story teller. She wanted to know all about my life and my family, of course. We both loved sharing about our kids, grandkids, and, in her case, great grandkids. We learned a lot of names!

We read books together—or, rather, I read aloud and she listened and responded. Our favorites were Spring Wind by Gladis DePree, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice, the last book we read, was so clever and  funny that many times I had to lay the book in my lap so we could laugh out loud together.

The grief I’m feeling now isn’t the same as the grief experienced at the death of a beloved spouse or child, or the untimely death of a loving parent. Several of my friends are walking this grief path where the life changes and emotional hurdles are profound. This is a grief that takes time to live through.

But grief at the death of a friend is real, and I’m letting myself live into the sense of loss, knowing that my friend is home safe, with perfect vision, reunited with family and friends of years past. I still miss her here where I live.

A poem that helps me understand and walk this sadness is one C. S. Lewis wrote at the death of his dear friend, Charles Williams:  

Your death blows a strange bugle call, friend, and all is hard
To see plainly or record truly. The new light imposes change,
Re-adjusts all a life-landscape as it thrusts down its probe from the sky,
To create shadows, to reveal waters, to erect hills and deepen glens.
The slant alters. I can’t see the old contours. It’s a larger world
Then I once through it. I wince, caught in the bleak air that blows on the ridge.
Is it the first sting of the great winter, the world waning? Or the cold of spring?

A hard question and worth talking a whole night on. But with whom?
Of whom can I now ask guidance? With what friend concerning your death
Is it worth while to exchange thoughts unless—oh unless it were you?

I’ll finish with a short liturgical poem from the book of liturgies by Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2, Death, Grief, and Hope:

I would rest my sorrows in you, O Christ.
In time let the long bearing of them
make me more empathetic and available
to those around me, who in their lives
will also greatly suffer and greatly grieve
the loss of those they love.

I will acknowledge my sadness and be open to the good work God is doing in me as a result of my friendship with this marvelous person.

 

Companions in grief

 It’s been a long hard week. Our dear friend and colleague died before any of us thought he would. The sense of loss has been overwhelming.

How much more for his wife, also our dear friend. My dilemma as an introvert has been how or even if to reach out to her. Maybe this is not the right time? Maybe she just needs to be alone? I don’t want to inappropriately intrude on time with family. I don’t want to make things worse with my presence or words. I certainly don’t have any wise advice to impart, not having traveled this path myself. But doing nothing also seems wrong.

Actually, my friend herself solved my dilemma, inviting Hal and me, plus our son and daughter, over the second evening after the death. Her three daughters had traveled to be with her. Our kids all grew up together on the mission field, so it was like a family reunion. We hugged, cried a little, laughed a lot, told stories, remembered all the funny and wise things Ron did. We ate a good meal supplied by a neighbor. Our intention had been to drop in, express our love and loss, then leave in “good time.” We ended up being together for four hours. It was healing and we all sensed it was “sacred time” (much better than “good time”).

But my concern as an introvert remains, specifically in situations where a friend is experiencing trauma or grief. I want to be a companion in grief, someone whose alongside presence is a genuine comfort. I need to learn how to step out of my lack of confidence and simply be that companion.

I spoke to two of my friends who have experienced grief, asking about what other people did or didn’t do that helped. And what only made things worse.

Marcile has experienced widowhood twice in her life. In her first marriage, she and David were still young, only 46. David was killed in a small-airplane crash that stunned the community and left Marcile bereft and alone. In an instant. Shortly after the memorial service, she recounts spending a weekend away with close friends. But during the whole weekend no one even mentioned the fact that David wasn’t with them. People sometimes think that if they don’t speak about a negative fact, it’s like it doesn’t exist. Not able to stand it any longer, Marcile brought up the subject and asked her friends to talk about it. She needed help in facing the new reality.

Marcile came to see grief as a dark pool that she had to walk through. It takes time. Sometime she felt as if she had arrived at the other side, only to be blindsided by a memory, again plunged into the pool. She said it helped to have a few trusted friends who walked alongside, who understood that the journey would be long.

My friend Bonnie recently lost her husband, after having spent a lifetime together. She found she needed both the company of trusted friends and times of silence. Shortly after her husband’s death, an acquaintance showed up uninvited, saying, “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Being alone is sometimes what I need,” Bonnie tells me. At this time in life, she prefers to stay home and has dropped some activities, including keeping up an active social life. “I’m not tending to friendship right now. I can’t do casual chit-chat.”

This does not rule out contact with others. Even before her husband died, several neighbors sensitively showed up, bringing coffee in the morning, checking in everyday but not staying too long, showing genuine affection and concern that comforted Bonnie. She currently keeps up meeting with several trusted friends, friends who know how to listen.

Heidi Matson, another friend who has walked the path of grief, has written a book about it: Even Though: A Journey through the Valley of Loss toward Hope (2021). I call Heidi a friend, but we’ve not actually met in person. During the pandemic, I had the privilege of editing Heidi’s book and we spent lots of time on the phone and conversing through email. Her story touched me and I’ve given her book to several of my grieving friends. (That can be a dangerous thing to do. Some equate receiving a book about grief as a form of advice. And not all grief books are equally helpful. Take care when you give your grieving friend a book.)

Heidi writes with humor about the insensitive things people can say. She writes about 

the inane, insensitive, and even ignorant comments made by several well-meaning people. Many can only sit in the pain and confusion [death] brings for so long before they are compelled to fill the space or try to fix it. As a result, they end up saying ridiculous things…. Silence, by the way, is rarely stupid. When you don’t know what to say, that’s probably a pretty good indicator that you shouldn’t say anything…. And the truth is, nothing you can say will make it better. But you can say a lot of things that will make it worse.

Heidi and a friend decided to face the issue with humor, creating “The Stupid List” where they listed insensitive comments. The list included, “You’re cute. You’ll be remarried in five years.” “God only does this to strong women.” “I’ve been avoiding you. I just can’t stand to see you. It’s too sad.” And so on. Most of us here in the retirement community would never say such things; we’re too mature, right?

In another chapter Heidi writes about the necessity of community for healing, speaking especially about friends and family who had experienced trauma themselves.

Often the people who were best at knowing how to be present were those who had themselves suffered. It is what I call the “fellowship of suffering.” The connection and understanding that exist with someone who knows what it’s like to feel suffocated by grief is a great comfort.

She writes about the people who simply held me—in their hearts, in their prayers, and in their arms.

Douglas McKelvey in his book, Every Moment Holy, includes a liturgy for “A Friend of One Who Grieves.” It voices my prayer:

“…. Give me wisdom, grace,
and empathy, O Lord, to simply walk beside,
to let my friend lead as they learn to navigate this grief,
and not to ever in arrogance believe that I can
somehow set them straight, or make it right,
or give advice they do not need from me.
Teach me how to set aside my own discomfort,
so that I might compassionately perceive,
in the context of their specific loss and their specific need,
what true encouragement and helpfulness would mean….
[Let] me serve my dear friend well
by a close and constant willingness
to bear some small part of their long burden.
Amen.