On Grieving

We do not know what happens after death.  A priest once asked me what I thought about my father's death.  I told him it gave me comfort to think of him sitting on the banks of the Jordan River fishing.  He looked down his nose at me and said, "Now, Donna, you  know that isn't Biblical."  It might not be Biblical but it makes me feel better.  

I've had to think about death a lot lately.  We've lost three parishioners in the last four weeks.  Two of those were within days of each other.  The one we lost last night hits too close to home.  She was an awesome lady.  Relatively new to the Episcopal church, she would come by my office sometimes and ask me questions about the church or ask me to define something for her.  We Episcopalians really do have a language all our own when it comes to Liturgy and church architecture.  I will miss her smiling face standing in my door saying, "It's pest again!"  She hated to be a bother.  

Losing so many people in such a short period of time has really brought death to the forefront of my thoughts.  I started thinking about the ways different religions might observe grief.  I'm Christian and Episcopalian.  We have Celebrations of Life.  When I was a Baptist, we had funerals.  There's a huge difference.  

It seems that the funerals left me with no closure.  There were a few words said about the deceased but the preacher quickly transitioned into the sermon on "what happens when you die without Jesus."  It seems like a person's funeral should be the one time in their life a preacher isn't standing over them trying to bring one more sorry soul into the fold.  There were no comforting words about the loved one or friend - only judgement for what is to come if we aren't "on the right path."  The hymns are slow and plodding.  There are no words of joy.

The Episcopal Celebration of Life (aka the Burial of the Dead) has always had a feeling of closure.  There is talk of the deceased.  People get up and share their fond/funny memories.  If the person prepared their burial instructions before they died, their favorite scriptures are read and hymns sung.  In the Episcopal Church, Easter hymns are sung at funerals.  We pray for the deceased that they may have rest and that perpetual light will shine upon them.  So I leave Episcopal funerals with a feeling of peace and closure that the one I have lost is at peace.  

The thing that bothers me about death in general is the grieving.  It seems we all grieve in our own way whether we are Baptist, Methodist, Catholic or Episcopalian.  It's a personal thing.  I think it would be nice to have a ritual, if you will, for grieving.  You know when it starts and you have a pretty good idea of when the worst of it will end.  Grieving for my father has lasted 33 years.  I grieve on every birthday and anniversary of his death and sometimes in between.  There was no process for moving past the worst of it.  Some years I grieve more than others.  I think it depends on my life's situation at the  moment.  Like most people, when I'm stressed I have less energy to deal with the hard things.  Grief is like that for me.  When my mother was alive, I was not allowed to talk about him.  That, too, seems to have prolonged the grieving process. I tend to want to talk things out.  Even seeing his gravestone somehow did not bring the closure I expected.

Now that I have started to think about grief, it makes me wonder how other religions deal with grief.  Over the next few weeks I'm going to try to contact people of other faiths to ask them how they deal with grief.  If you know of someone who might be interested in being part of my personal mission to understand grief, please have them email me at donnabecton@gmail.com.  I would love the opportunity to talk with them.  They can be Christian or not Christian.  I'm interested in all of it.  

For my friend, Raye, who died last night:

Rest eternal, grant to her, O Lord:
And let light perpetual shine upon her.

May her soul, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.