Yesterday the matriarch of our congregation died, quickly and peacefully, with one of her daughters and two granddaughters by her side. I arrived at the hospital about an hour later to wait with them for the funeral home to come and take her body to prepare it for burial. It was a sad, but also a holy time, a time for giving thanks, as death can be, especially when the person who has died has lived a long, full life.
It has been said that death comes in threes, and this is the second one in our church in the last two weeks. This week I also spent some time with a woman who we thought was near death, but, thankfully, it seems like she's doing better and getting stronger. So maybe the third will wait a while yet.
Being a part of the end of life is one of the privileges of my role as a pastor, for it is a sacred journey to move from this life to the life eternal, and it's a blessing for me to do what I can to comfort those left behind. But it can also be sad and even sometimes emotionally draining, because I, too, share in the grief.
Today in my pregnancy yoga class I noticed this juxtaposition for the first time: I am, at this moment, literally a bearer of life, and that is a strange and wonderful thing to be in the midst of death.
At the beginning of this yoga class we go around the room and do a "check-in" so that people can share where they are in their pregnancy and how they are feeling. Most of the time it's complaints of swollen feet or back pain or trouble sleeping, combined with the elation of feeling the baby move, and anticipating (with mixed emotions) the birth process. Today when it was my turn, I shared that physically I feel fine, but that what I was carrying was mostly spiritual restlessness. I told them that I had lately felt surrounded by death, and yet I was also aware that I was in the process of bringing forth new life, and my emotions are swirling. So I warned them, "So if I burst into tears during pigeon pose, that's why," and the room full of equally hormonal women all nodded sympathetically, offering me their permission to break down if I needed to.
Well, I didn't break down. Instead, leaving yoga class, I felt this great sense of hopefulness from being surrounded by so much life. And an awareness and gratitude for both life and death which are part of my life, part of all human life and are each blessings from God.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing Rev. Rachel; I've always wondered how you cope with sad situations like sickness, and especially death. I think about it a lot because our congregation has a large senior population and from where I sit in the pews, I often fear that your calendar would be filled with visits to sick and elderly... a good thing, but a also a sad reminder of things I don’t even want to deal with right now...
Sadly I've had to deal with several deaths in my family - first my grand mom, then my grand aunt, my uncle Austin and a very close friend Samuel- all within the past 5 weeks! Did you say threes? Well I got four and I've been paranoid that there's some "bad breeze" blowing "my" way. I was sad about my grand mom but I'm consoled by the fact that she's had a good life and died peacefully in her sleep. The other three - now that's a different story - my grand aunt died from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident on her way to my grand mom’s (after she heard of her passing), my uncle collapsed and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, Samuel was found dead in his room - he leaves behind a pregnant wife and 2 little children. It's been a very trying (and spooky) time for me. I know that by faith I should give thanks to God always. I am thankful for lives lived to "ripe old ages" but how am I supposed to be grateful for younger lives lost, families broken,...how are these blessing? I‘ll count my blessings – but I won’t include these. I am encouraged by the hopefulness you expressed from being surrounded by life, but I'm also aware that life can be over at the blink of my fake lashed eyes.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this. I am so sorry for all the loss you have experienced lately. And you're right, untimely, unfair deaths like Samuel's are not blessings. We feel cheated and it's perfectly understandable that at times like these we might even feel anger toward God for allowing such things to happen.
But death is still part of life, even if it comes too soon. We are not promised long lives; we are simply given life as a gift. So we cherish every single day. We give ourselves in love to others, knowing that it's risky. We continue to live, looking for signs of hope and new life. And we hold fast to the promise of eternal life.
Oh yeah, and we let ourselves grieve, too. Cry as much as you need to, trusting that those tears are part of what helps us to heal and move forward.
My love and prayers are with you...Rev. Rachel
This woman's son youngest son is a member of my congregation and shared that you did a wonderful job ministering to his mother and to her family. Way to go, and thank you!!
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