The November day was cold. The wind blew easterly from the ocean, lending a bite to the air that made me shiver. We traveled the ferry from the Island to Brooklyn on the way to bury my grandmother at Greenwood Cemetery. It was 1951 and I was seventeen at the time.
I had already lost four of my close relatives in the span of five years. Fr. Rogers, our priest, conducted the graveside ceremony for my grandmother as he had for my other relatives. The committal was brief. When it ended, we returned to the cars. I looked back and suddenly felt panicky. I didn’t want my grandmother to be left in the ground alone on such a bleak and inhospitable day. When I got into the limousine I looked once again to the gravesite on the hill; Fr. Rogers stood there, as if he planned to be there for a while. He looked serene and at ease and I immediately felt comforted, because I knew he would look after her when we’d gone.
We can endure most anything if we know we are not alone.
Not long ago, I served as a doula for a dying friend. She was ninety-two. A doula functions as a kind of midwife who provides bedside presence, support and comfort through an individual’s dying process. The doula’s role is to facilitate a transition in the way a midwife comforts and aids the mother through her birthing process. I was not presiding over an ending – the way I’d often done as a priest performing last rites. I felt useful being a doula that evening, but I had one regret. Although my friend remained comatose while I sat with her, I held her hand, but didn’t think to read or sing to her. I wondered afterward if a voice might have been more soothing, the way just the sound of lullabies comforts infants.
The pain of loss is cumulative. As we suffer current losses, the previous ones are partially awakened from dormancy and some residual pain is added to the present loss – exacerbating the ache of mourning. Grief is a universal experience. Its pain subsides slowly. In time it leaves a slight scar. Like others of life’s chronic conditions, grief can be managed so as not to interfere with daily living. To mourn is the price for being fully human and caring for others. We also mourn for the things we once did and now can’t.
A seventy-year old man told me with tears in his eyes that he was physically no longer able to play tennis. At eighty-one, I nearly killed myself attempting to sail a sixteen-foot sailboat solo as I once did easily when I was fifteen. My mother always said I had to learn the hard way. We live by the process of taking hold and then letting go. We live it best when we know when to take hold and when to let go.
For most of us, the three biggest rites of life’s passages in which we participate, either as spectators or participants, are the rites around births, marriages and funerals. People often weep at all three but hopefully, not for the same reasons. Marriage and the birth of a baby are about beginnings; about hopes . . . in short, births and marriages celebrate a future. What’s different about death and funerals (now called celebrations of life) is that they manage loss by celebrating of a life already lived. Even the most ardent Christian who is convinced of bodily resurrection, will still grieve for his loss. Along with other mourners, Jesus wept for his dead friend Lazarus, whom Jesus later raises from the dead. Simply put, mourning is a part of being alive, it’s one of the common denominators shared by all humanity.
I’ve heard some people say that dying should be a private act and has nothing to do with others except close friends and family. They wish no memorial services or any other event. They prefer going anonymously into that dark night. I guess that has something to do with how we understand our lives in relationship to others. I believe we Americans are obsessed with the need to express our individuality (I got my rights) to the extent that we give little thought to the importance of where we belong in a community and our responsibility to it.
As a priest who has conducted celebrations of life, I’ve noticed that there is profound intimacy in sharing grief. It produces a distinctive sense of belonging unlike other rites of passage. Whether we have religious inclinations or are atheists, the importance of attending some communal acknowledgement of our loss is critical to the healing process in mourning.
Calling funerals a celebration of life isn’t just making nice. With the loss of the loved one there is an automatic recollection of moments – often, significant ones – during which we have shared with that person some pieces of our own lives. Death and dying are the reminders that we all share a common destiny, and we are made stronger by dealing gently with it as we welcome others to mourn with us.
We can endure most anything if we know we are not alone.
Patricia Skinner says
Beautiful