Hope in obituaries? Seeing celebration of how life was lived can be incentivizing for better days

“Today is the day she has lived her whole life for,” said a friend commenting on the death of my friend Sister Martinette Rivers.

In a year when I’ve known 54 people or their relative die, that is the statement that struck me the most. Another is that death is a victory, said the presider over my sister’s mother-in-law’s funeral. At the funeral of an immigrant, it was said he was back to his true homeland. The presider of my husband's cousin's funeral said she just got a head start over the rest of us.

David Jeremiah says there’s no sorrow like a sad goodbye. None of us is exempt. But there’s no joy like that of the Savior who rose again and who promises that we’ll inherit a land where we’ll never again say goodbye. Our farewells will become hellos. Instead of “So long,” we’ll say, “Good to see you!” And our heartaches will be forgotten amid our hallelujahs.

In 2008, Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife lost their five-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. They were deluged by messages of kindness. One in particular gave Chapman strength.  It was from a pastor friend who’d lost his son in an auto accident.  “Remember, your future with your daughter will be greater than your past with her.”

At another funeral of an arts lover, the priest said that anything that is beautiful leads people to God. He said to share those stories of her involvement and she will live on after being ushered into heaven, the everlasting dwelling place. Acknowledge that her journey with the Lord is just beginning. It will be paradise.

Wait until you get there! The place is “better than the advertising” was a line at my neighbor’s mother’s funeral. Life starts anew and rest is found.

During this time of coronavirus, I read Mitch Albom’s book where he was diminished by his daughter’s death. He was rudderless and yearning for comfort. While there are positive things that can be heard in some eulogies, there are also shock, disbelief, confusion, anger, numbness, fear and guilt. There are these words: frazzled, derailed, disconnected, discombobulated, bereft. There will be a cascade of emotions. Death has been called the lonely afterward. Hobbled by grief, you may face coarse tears from your eyes, a sinking pit in your stomach, a heavy heart, a step in quicksand, a world of woe, loss of direction, a pillar that is tilting and stolen joy. Especially if the death happens like a bolt out of the blue. It’s all weird.

Some women want to know who is going to trim the bushes, get in the attic, kill bugs? Men may ask who will grocery shop and cook?

Brene Brown speaks of the loss of normality, what could be, what we thought we knew or understood. There is no one to remember with. She said grief is like surfing. Sometimes you feel steady and able to ride the waves. Other times they crash on you. It can be like a lonely leaf drifting on a stream.

Life is changed, but not taken away totally. We bury the wedding that never happened, the golden years we won’t share. We bury dreams. But in heaven these dreams will come true. Acts 3:21 says that God has promised a “restoration of all things.”  All things include all relationships.

There is a very familiar saying: Those who love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day. Unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed and very dear.

We are blessed in the highs and lows of life because God is with us. With Jesus, no one is ever left behind or without, said Father Rothell Price.

C.S. Lewis said pain is God’s megaphone. It was only in the depths of suffering that he could hear him.

I read that one third of people will be empathetic towards someone grieving. Understand and believe in your capacity to heal. One third will be neutral. They will neither help nor hinder. One third will be harmful, not necessarily intentionally. Remember that we all have the opportunity to walk beside someone in crisis. If you dream about them, it's a sign to call and check up on their grief journey. Nothing is an accident.

For the remainder of his life, Thomas Jefferson kept a lock of his wife Martha’s hair in a secret drawer beside his bed. When she finally closed her eyes, Jefferson fainted and was carried insensible out of the room. For three weeks he did not leave his room. He couldn’t talk. At this time, a bond began to form between Jefferson and his daughter, Martha, who they called Patsy, and Patsy was the only one, apparently, who could get through to him. Hope to have that one person in your life.

But don’t allow others to push you into doing things you don’t feel ready to do. You have the right to experience griefbursts, said a story in the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors magazine.

Henry Ruggs, an Alabama football player, tried grieving hours upon hours at his friend Rod Scott’s gravesite. He said he was a bottled-up person who kept a lot to himself. Confronting his grief privately slowed it down even more. He would spend 10 hours at the cemetery. He had the flu so didn’t go when the wreck that killed his friend happened. He finally resolved to be motivated, not encumbered. If you put two guys in a room, one working and one with purpose, the guy with the purpose will win every time, Ruggs said. That’s Ruggs now and Scott is his purpose. He holds up three fingers in a salute to Scott, who wore No. 3, at Lee High School. His Twitter is a picture of his best friend’s gravestone, which includes a quote from Scott. “I will do something great.” The quote is also tattooed on Ruggs’ lower right leg.

Drew Barrymore said she finds hope everywhere, even obituaries. She said there’s nothing morbid about them. They’re a celebration of how a life was lived. She finds them very incentivizing to go out and live bigger and better that day.

Most everyone would like to leave happy memories. An afterglow of smiles when day is done. An echo whispering softly of happy and laughing times and bright and sunny days.

Finding meaning is the last stage of grief. Painting spoke to one woman. It was a form of expression. As a wise person observed, when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies spring forth from the heart.

An 11-year-old began the #elpasoCHALLENGE in 2019. He challenged El Pasoans to commit 20 Random Acts of Kindness. One for every person who was killed in the city’s mass shooting.

Burying your sorrow in doing good deeds may help. Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment, said Dag Hammarskjold.

One son wrote letters in a mailbox placed in the woods to his dad. It was a continued connection. “I don’t miss you; your spirit glides by often,” he said.

When Benjamin Franklin was a young man, he composed an epitaph for himself.  I paraphrased it.

The body of B. Franklin, Printer,

Like the cover of an old book,

Its contents torn out,

And stripped of its lettering and gilding,

Lies here,

But the work shall not be lost,

For it will, as he believed,

Appear once more

In a new and more elegant edition,

Corrected and improved.

Remember, “There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover. Tomorrow, just you wait and see.”— "White Cliffs of Dover" by Vera Lynn (1917–2020)

Death is not only a closed door but an open window, not the end of life, but a different beginning. I wish you peace and comfort as you grieve. Special people leave this world for another wonderful adventure on wings of love and peace and God sends his love to us on the wings of our angels in heaven.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 about the seed and mortality.

Finally, if you have 12 minutes, watch “If Anything Happens, I Love You” on Netflix. Through animation and no dialogue, the film shows a rich lifetime of memories between parents and their deceased child. Those memories bring the parents pain, but also get them through their grief.