Serving Grief

When I arrived at the skilled nursing community last week, I was greeted by a room of sorrow. I learned the source was Tony's death the day before. The activity director asked if we could hold a memorial service. He said that he thought some people would want to speak. I knew Tony to be a humble man who would sometimes come to worship, but who would often need to leave right after Communion for a cigarette. I learned he was a veteran (probably Vietnam), and was deeply loved. My love and respect for this community has always been high, but it increased as I listened. Here, room is made for friendship and for grief, both essential for any healthy community.

   

I wove the hymns printed on the song sheets around the people's reflections, and the more we sang, the more I felt the presence of both Tony and Christ and how now they were one. The tears did not stop, but the room seemed to fill with light as we sang  "The Old Rugged Cross", "Man of Sorrow", and "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross". Eventually we found ourselves concluding with "He Lives".  I believe I did hear the voice of conviction, even if it was a little wobbly.   

 

Margaret waited until the end to speak, and asked me if I knew Tony smoked (her tracheostomy leads me to believe she did as well). I replied yes, and how grateful I was that he was not a smoker any more. That struggle was over; it did not journey with him across the threshold, and our struggles won't either. Heads nodded.  After the service, Tom, who tends to be stoic, had tears in his eyes as he told me that Tony had been his roommate, and that he had simply died in his sleep. Quietly he added, "the best way."     

 

Many of those gathered were not the old old, and many, despite their relatively young age, may very well spend all their last years in skilled nursing.  Into that grief I walked. I have been preaching more about Jesus, for I find I need him.  I need his nudge to walk down those halls and to cross those thresholds. I need the assurance that he walks with me, continually reminding me to touch and to be touched.  The people yearn to hear the reassurance that he is near, and so do I. Jesus is tangible proof that our struggles are not in vain, and that our lives are not the results of some some flukey accident.  Tony probably did not know that in him, in both his strengths and his weaknesses, in his life and in his death, he gave people a chance to see a glimpse of Christ. He was indeed an old rugged cross. 

 

Thank you, Tony, for daring to live in this world. May the memory of your service stay with me a good long while.      

   

Grief is holy madness. It is not a puzzle to be solved, a problem to overcome, or a situation to be managed. It is a wilderness we wander in search of the sacred - an absent other, a missing self. No one can take this wilderness from us, and no one should. You who grieve, stay away from people who want you to get over it fast. They don't know the work you're doing is holy.  

Grief's Compass, Walking the Wilderness with Emily Dickinson, Patricia McKernon Runkle, copyright 2017.  

One of the most touching and insightful books on grief (her brother died by suicide) I have read to date.