At a recent funeral, the speaker said pastors say no one listens to what they say at a wedding because they are awaiting the reception. Some would rather do funerals, so I thought to myself, the deceased person really is waiting for their party in heaven.
He also said, “Give me the keys. It’s OK to go home now.” Dr. David Jeremiah has been preaching on heaven and mentioned the three-hour ticker tape parades for the moon landing astronauts in New York City and Chicago. That was quite a welcome home. So, consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. Colossians 3:2.Grief especially makes the holidays a staid affair. Your mom and dad would be coming over for Christmas dinner if they were alive. You remember hearing him knock. The apron mom was wearing. You smell his Old Spice and her Estee Lauder. What would you talk about while eating? What would we watch or listen to afterwards? LSU for sure.
Set out something you knew they would have liked, a particular glass, for example. Maybe your wind chimes will ring out as a sign.
There is no playbook. There are retreats, books, podcasts, online workshops, support groups and columns such as this, my 21st annual.
Death can happen to someone you know at any time. It is certain. There are no retakes, make-up tests or extra credit assignments afterwards, said an article in the “Catholic Connection.” You never know when photos are all you will have left.
You may not get a warning sign. He blinked, and he was in heaven is what was said about Charlie Kirk.
In the Burger Chef murders in Indiana, a line said it is hard to have an unhealed wound and still go on. Jesus places a salve on your wounds.
Stacy Chapin, whose son was one of the Idaho four, channeled her grief into a foundation. She walked so much that her dog got tired. It felt daunting to be thankful. She had to carry on for her other kids. They don’t deserve parents who have derailed, she said at Crime Con.
Rabbi Harold Kushner felt he became a more effective pastor due to the tragic death of his son. In his famous 1981 book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” he wrote that his son's life and death made him a "more sensitive person, a more effective pastor and a more sympathetic counselor."
You either present light so others are uplifted and see value, or you become darkness. Find beauty in everyday objects. After the Highland Park shooting, a mom bought her family new shoes to walk forward into a new place and put the bad behind.
A group became the calendar girls to help a friend through grief. They were each assigned the same day every month to perform a simple gesture for their widowed friend--card, call or coffee. They did it for a year. The leader included her favorite color and candy to the women in case they wanted to send a small gift, but it didn’t need to be monetary. It was for emotional support. It could be a walk or something handmade. Lunch or prayers. Or offering to pick up something for her at the store. It doesn’t always have to be words. You don’t know how people will feel or respond. But don’t do nothing.
If you are the one who is grieving, don't isolate yourself. "Take that bold step out of your door and into living." – K-Love. Don’t stifle your sorrow.
Your fingers itch to call your loved one. He goes with me wherever I go, said someone speaking of his dad. Marshall Faulk’s coach made him leave the house for his dad’s funeral. He wasn’t ready to say bye.
A group such as Red Bird can help mothers who have lost an infant or had a stillborn birth. The hardest goodbye is the one before hello, their article said.
Grief gave Flannery O’Connor insight into grace. It can be revelatory or redemptive. It can bring you together or further apart.
I don’t think anybody is OK after the passing of their mom was a line in “20/20.” She signed your birth certificate. You handled her funeral plans. She chose your first outfit. You chose her last. She watched you take your first breath and you watched her last. Your birth likely gave her the best day of her life and her passing gave you your worst. I was dependent on my parents for everything. I’m with Virgil. “No Day Shall Erase You from the Memory of Time.”
Actor Guy Pearce’s dad was a chief test pilot for Australia’s government aircraft industry who crashed. His mother didn’t say, “I need you to help me.” She said, “It’s wonderful that you’re being responsible.”
I still have a relationship with my father, said Michael Gandolfini. I talk to him whenever I’m looking for guidance or going through something significant, he said. There are no goodbyes for them.
Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart is a Mahatma Gandhi quote.
St. Francis welcomed “sister death.” It is not the end of life, but merely end of life in this world and beginning of life in the next. The circle is broken now, but it will be put back together one day. Whatever one does now is preparing for then.
We can participate in the healing mission by going to funerals. Share Christ’s love with the brokenhearted. They may be a puddle of mush with unrelenting tears and have an irreparable hole. Help them whether they are gloomy, rudderless or gutted.
The post-funeral flurry of activity will go away and that’s when grief will hit like a tidal wave. Ride them out with Jesus, starting in small ripples. Saint Thérèse said it best: “The world is thy ship and not thy home.” We are created for eternal union, life everlasting with God, which cannot reach its perfection until we are purified and pass from this life.
Faith does not take the pain away, but it does help you move through it. --Nicole Avant on the death of her mother
One man turned over written prayers at a relative’s funeral. We could have done something like that with thank you letters mom saved. Fill shoeboxes with those to bring out for Valentine’s Day.
They say when an old person dies, a library burns to the ground. Make beauty of those ashes and read a treasured book.
Grief can be immobilizing. It’s a beast in the heart that needs to be set free. You are a guardian of the memory. But don’t ruminate on the past.
A character in “Love and Saffron” said to another that it is disrespectable to be sad for President Kennedy forever.
Grief is an experience to live with, not an obstacle to overcome. Don’t seal off memories; hold them close. Revisit movies you liked; cook dishes you enjoyed. Think about the days you did see, not didn’t have. Sometimes I play some Eddy Arnold or Patti Page for dad and mom’s David Kerch song “If I Never Stop Loving You” and Bocelli. The music doesn’t sound the same, but a special song might make you sing instead of feeling like your heart is in your throat. I loved seeing the words Rest in melody for Roberta Flack.
Eyes are half-mast and air and sunshine don’t embrace your skin like before either.
This won’t work for everyone, but humor columnist Dave Barry’s mother at her husband’s funeral walked around the cemetery after reading gravestones and said, “So, that’s why we don’t see him around anymore.” The Paris Catacombs encourage visitors toward introspection and a meditation on death.
Be the white hat to someone’s black. This was a line at my cousin’s funeral because he was a great guy.
Be productive and turn grief into action. Squeeze every last second of life you can. Be a catalyst for changes that will save other families from similar tragedies such as stopping cruise boat deaths like Amy Bradley’s mother.
Have a you day. You will regain your bearings. One man does a pre-mortem every year on the same day.
Learn to play the guitar like your husband had always wanted you to.
A cat brought comfort to a football team at Bowling Green after a team member’s mother’s death.
A family encouraged celebrating Turtle, their dog who died. Bring in the pain. Sometimes a need is greater than your pain.
Joy and grief will eventually coexist, said a letter to the editor. Maybe mold you into a kinder, gentler, compassionate person. When we lose a loved one, we don’t lose the choice in how we respond.
Steve Guttenberg was so grateful for his dad. He held, bathed, taught him, helped him face fears, breakups and firings. The dad’s writing was beautiful like a piece of art, like a fancy sign or opening credits of a movie. Same as mine. He also was reminded to have money with him. My quarter in the glove box was a thing. Both his and mine knew when gas prices would go up. When in the hospital, the dad looked for the escape hatch. Mine, too. My father’s words had always been my beacon. Steve said. His smile was like no one else’s—same for mine--crooked from strokes.
Steve’s smile was muted when he died. The family was their trophy case. I know mine had a Toastmasters trophy, too, though. His dad was his hero, rock, wisdom, mentor, sounding board, net. Same, as I posted today. He put a note in his hands in the casket. Why didn’t I think of that? Then it became a rubbery, slushy year. Steve walked differently. His gait was missing a step. He peppered conversations with “occur” like his dad did. I use “fair.” Nothing tasted as good.
This was also in his book: Rosalynn Carter said there are four types of people on earth--you are a caregiver, will be a caregiver, were a caregiver, and shall need a caregiver.
Epitaph by Merrit Malloy
When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.
And at a Bible study on heaven with Jennifer Rothschild, she used an acrostic on hurting:
Hurt.
Offer that hurt to God.
Pray.
Expect.
She said death has no voice except the one we give it. Jesus is the final living word. Death is defeated.
Death Is Nothing At All by Henry Scott Holland
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
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