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Overview
When a loved one dies, you don’t get over it, but you can move on.
The bad news is that we never fully “get over” the loss of those we hold most dear; we bear those scars to the grave. The good news is that God is at work in us turning our loss and pain into something beautiful. God can take the scars and the mess and the heartache of our lives-- yours and mine-- and use it to give new life, new life to us and new life to others.
God is not in the business of zapping our loved ones and stealing them away from us. But in a world where death waits for every person, God stands ready. God stands ready to receive our beloved dead as they cross over; and God stands ready to guide us through the saddest days, to walk with us through our grief, and to take us into places we never could have imagined places of hope and renewal. If God could take a cross and broken body and make of them redemption, God can take your pain and heartache and fashion them into new life.
This book is composed of the reflections that point to broader lessons that will help those who find themselves passing through grief, as well as the pastors, counselors, and friends whose job is to accompany the traveler.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426756139 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 172 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
When the One You Love is Gone
By Rebekah L. Miles
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2012 Abingdon PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-5613-9
CHAPTER 1
Early Days: Wading Through Hell, Catching Glimpses of Glory
Grieving is an altered state, especially in the days just after a death. It can be one of the most bizarre and difficult experiences of this life. If you are grieving now and you sometimes feel like you are going crazy, please know that it is temporary and normal. If it feels too hard to bear, please remember that over time it gets easier for most people. Whatever you are going through on your pilgrimage of grief, find help and support and always remember that the God who created you and your dead will suffer with you and sustain you.
There Is No Such Thing as an Individual
A few times over those seven weeks in the hospital, we thought we were about to lose Mom, but the world didn't actually shift until my sister called late that night on January 27 and said, "Beka, she's almost gone." Ever since that single breathtaking moment, the world has been "off" somehow. It isn't simply that the world before me is "a world minus Mom." It seems more sweeping than that.
The feeling is impossible to describe with any accuracy, but I have been thinking lately of those wretched animals thrown into a strange state before a storm. I have watched dogs pace and howl and hide under a porch; you can see them under there, crouched low with just their noses and front paws sticking out. They are uneasy in the world.
I am not hiding under porches ... at least not yet ... but I am uneasy in the world. Things are off center. It isn't just that the world has shifted; I seem to have shifted in some fundamental— though indescribable—way.
I have been thinking about D. W. Winnicott's astonishing claim that the infant doesn't exist as an individual but always as a relationship with the mother. He calls it the mother-infant dyad. Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, once wrote, "There is no such thing as a baby." It's ridiculous, but somehow true, even so. Babies exist always in and as relationship with another.
Maybe this is true not just of babies, but of everyone. We like to think of ourselves as individual units, but maybe there is no such thing as an individual in the way we ordinarily think about it. Maybe, at some level, our existence is made up of those bonds and connections with other people—maybe even with the dog hiding under the porch, maybe even with God.
Indeed, if Christians are right about God's nature, then God is relationship: the One made up of the three in communion with one another. This very God said, "Let us make humankind in our image" (Gen. 1:26). We, made in God's image, are then, by virtue of our creation and our creator, relational; we are not just made for relationship, but we exist as relationship. We are at our deepest nature, communal beings. There is no such thing as an individual.
If our very existence is bound up with the existence of those we love, then when those we love die, we die with them. We grieve then, not just for the dead, but for the parts of ourselves that are lost. How do we keep moving forward after a part of us has died? How do we find our bearings in this unfamiliar world?
Where Are the Dead?
My sister, Deborah, keeps asking, "Where did Mama go?" and Dad wanders the house whispering, "JoAnn, my love, where are you?" She was here, and, then, in a moment, she was gone.
The simple, though not particularly satisfying, answer is that her body is in Hot Springs, Arkansas, about six feet under the earth at a cemetery near the corner of Hollywood and Shady Grove (which is precisely at 93.046303 degrees west longitude and 34.486538 degrees north latitude, if you want specifics). And her soul is with God ... wherever that is.
Even though we know that Mom is more than her body—so that you cannot say, in truth, that she is near the corner of Hollywood and Shady Grove—what does it mean for people to be separate from their bodies when those dear bodies have been at the core of their identity and are necessary for our relationships to them? Put too crassly, what good is a relationship without a body?
Yesterday, we went with Dad to the grave, and he chatted away, telling Mom about the oatmeal we had for breakfast and the flowers in their yard. That's where widowers most often go to talk with their dead brides—to the graveyard. It seems peculiar to be standing with Dad as he talks to the air, but where else could he go but to the place where her body was laid?
This deep longing to connect with others as bodies is a fundamental piece of human existence. That's the manner of our knowing one other. We relate to the other not just with our bodies but as bodies.
For Christians, that's exactly why God came in Christ. The incarnation is all about God in a body. And now that I think about it, when God in Christ was embodied in the world, he spent most of his time dealing with bodies—healing sick bodies, raising dead bodies, and feeding hungry bodies. That's also what he called his followers to do—to tend to others by means of their bodies—clothing, feeding, binding, healing. We struggle to discern how we might continue the task of being Christ to the other when the other is no longer bodied.
It's Impossible for Mom to Die
If we had recordings of the rambling conversations among my siblings over the last few weeks since Mom died, the words unbelievable and inconceivable would be near the top of the word-frequency list—along with the words Mother, death, lost keys, Dad, thank-you notes, and casseroles. Just the juxtaposition of the words our mother and the word dead seems to go against what we evidently—and wrongly—felt was the natural order of things. How can the world keep spinning and the forsythia still bloom with our dear mother dead?
What a strange experience this is. It isn't just sad that Mom is dead; it is inconceivable. She can't be dead. It's not possible. And the certain truth that it is possible and that she is, in fact, dead, does not make it feel any less inconceivable.
In the early 1970s, our preschool cousins were loyal fans of Daniel Boone—not the real Daniel Boone, but the twentieth-century Fess Parker version they watched each afternoon on our living room TV. They were adamant that Boone was immortal; they would begin most conversations by jutting out their smooth chins and proclaiming, "Daniel Boone never died!" If you argued with them about the historical facts or tried to show them encyclopedia articles with information about Boone's death, as their big sister, Heather, and I once foolishly did, things would escalate. They would jump up and down, yelling, "Daniel Boone never died." We learned to humor them.
As ridiculous as it was, you could see an odd, internal logic behind this patently false claim. After all, how could something as ordinary as death take down the man described on their very own TV set as the "rippin'est, roarin'est, fightin'ist man the frontier ever knew." Every afternoon they had seen Boone face down bears and redcoats as well as historically inaccurate and offensive caricatures of armed native peoples; and Boone never died. He never even got winded! Death was simply not a possibility.
Some weeks before Mom's death, when things looked especially grim, we were gathered as a family in the ICU waiting room talking openly for the first time about the real possibility that Mom might not make it. My sister went off on a rant, "People don't die of the problems Mother has." (This was patently false.) "Mother is not going to die. She can't die. It is impossible for Mother to die." (This, too, was patently false.) We looked at her and said nothing. Seeing the expressions on our faces, she stopped, took a deep breath, and then added defiantly, "And Daniel Boone never died!"
It isn't just that the idea of Mom's death seemed hard to bear; at some deep level it simply did not seem possible. How could Mom die? How could something as ordinary as death take down the mama, the creator, organizer, and sustainer of the family? For years she ate the right combination of crunchy orange vegetables and leafy green ones. She drank a gallon of spring water each day. Time and again Mom had faced down her children, her husband, assorted bishops, and state legislators; and she never died. She rarely even lost an argument. Death was simply not a possibility.
The fact that this claim was patently false did not make it any less emotionally compelling. Deep down, some little—or big—part of us believed that our mother could never die.
Looking Sideways at Death
Recently, I overheard our daughter Anna talking with a good friend and fellow fourth grader who lost her grandmother last spring. Anna told her, "I've decided to think that Mema didn't die. When I'm home in Texas, I'm going to think she is in Arkansas; and when I'm in Arkansas, I'm going to think she is still in the hospital and will come home later. I don't want her to be dead, so I'm going to think she is still alive."
Technically, Anna is not in denial. She knows that Mema is dead, but she has "decided to think" that she isn't dead, and she is explaining the details of her plan for pretending that Mema's not dead even when she knows good and well that Mema is, in fact, dead. When I mentioned Mom's death later that day, Anna scolded me, "Mom! Don't say that! You know I'm pretending Mema's not dead!"
I am amazed by the capacity of the mind to respond creatively in shock and grief. Dad has talked over the last few weeks about "looking sideways at death." He can't bear to face Mom's death head-on for more than a moment, so he notes death in his peripheral vision and then tries to focus his attention elsewhere for the sake of his sanity and survival. It's too painful to cast his full gaze upon it. The day of the memorial service, he told me, "Right now I'm looking sideways at death until I get my tasks done. Then I'll face it and walk that hard road."
The Drill Drills On: Suffering Is Unavoidable
It's Valentines Day, Dad's first without Mom. Last night was his first alone in the house since Mom died. Two weeks ago today, we gathered at their church to mark her passing. I look at the cheery calendar hanging on the wall of our bright kitchen and see month after month of cheerless anniversaries and sad firsts.
We keep coming up with new ways to help Dad: arranging trips, phoning him, asking other people to visit him. His sister Joy brings him strawberry milk shakes. When he was at our house this week, we served him blackberry cobbler with ice cream one night and apple pie another.
Still, Dad struggles. He wanders his house muttering to Mom and Jesus, and Jesus and Mom one after the other. "Oh, JoAnn, why did you leave me? Come back, my darling. Sweet Jesus, help me. Give me your peace, Lord. JoAnn, I'm lost without you. Help me, Lord." Dad tells us he is "wading through hell."
After C. S. Lewis's wife died, he wrote himself through that hell. In the middle of his journaling he asked, "Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? ... It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of a dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on."
I do not want Dad to suffer. I cannot bear to think of him at home by himself, crying for Mom. But, really, does it matter what I do not want or what I cannot bear? Regardless, our father is going to be at home by himself, missing Mom and crying for her. Strawberry milk shakes, phone calls, and even blackberry cobbler won't change that.
When we were living in Chicago years ago in an apartment building filled with other seminary students, a young woman— the wife of a student pastor from Korea—gave birth three months prematurely. The parents were told that their baby daughter had little chance of making it through the week. That first night after the birth, the father could say little without breaking down, so he said only this: "Dark tunnel; must go through."
I have often thought about that young family when I have witnessed others take that long forced march through hell. "Dark tunnel; must go through." No amount of phone calls or blackberry cobblers will change it. We still have to take that long forced march, just as countless others have before us ... Christ included. Knowing that there is life on the other side does not take away the pain of the march. Dark tunnel; must go through. The drill drills on.
No Eye Is on the Sparrow
A few days after Christmas in 2003, Joan Didion and her husband, both writers, were at the hospital bedside of their daughter who had fallen into a coma. Later that evening, as they sat down to eat, her husband collapsed and died of a massive heart attack. "You sit down to dinner," wrote Didion, "and life as you know it ends." The Year of Magical Thinking, winner of the National Book Award, is Didion's account not only of the aftermath of her husband's death but also of her ongoing struggle as she cared for her daughter who died soon after the book was finished.
Toward the end of her memoir on grief and then, again, in its final sentence, Didion repeats a heartbreaking refrain: "No eye is on the sparrow."
"No eye is on the sparrow." That is about the saddest line I have ever heard. I grew up with the old sentimental gospel song "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" and with the scripture on which this song draws: Jesus' insistence in Matthew 10 that as God is attentive to the sparrow that falls to the ground, so God is even more attentive to the individual person.
I have been astonished that faith has not lightened the grief. Perhaps faith will not save us from grief and sorrow, but I cannot imagine a world where "no eye is on the sparrow." And I have no idea how a person who sees the world that way could navigate life on ordinary days, much less on a day when "you sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
But however great the solace, trusting that God's eye is on the sparrow and on those we love does little to protect us from heartbreak. Faith does not save us from death, from grief, from loss.
Soon after our grandmother's death in 1990, my brother, John, was preaching a children's sermon using this Matthew 10 passage among others. With the children gathered around him, John talked about God's love for all of creation: "God cares for the lilies and the sparrows, and God cares for us too." His preschool daughter, Zoe, brought John up short, "But Daddy, don't you know? Lilies die and sparrows die and people die too."
God's eye is on the sparrow, but still the sparrow falls.
Faith does not promise that we will never have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, only that God will be with us when we do.
Extraordinary Experiences
It is a joy to think that we will be with Mom again someday, but I would give anything to see her now, this side of eternity— just one glimpse. Last night I dreamed Dad and I were in a bus terminal, trying to figure out how to get to Mom; we were beside ourselves.
In the middle of her hospitalization, Mom came close to death and was resuscitated by her doctors. She appears to have seen her dead mother. It is common for the dying to say that they see their deceased loved ones. The living, too, often report that they hear or see their dead or feel their presence. In several studies of widows and widowers, approximately half said that they had had an experience of this kind. These experiences have been the subject of reputable studies to discern the effects on the bereaved. Known in the literature as Extraordinary Experiences or Post Death Contact (EEs or PDCs for short), they appear in many cases to offer solace and even to help the grieving deal with issues that were unresolved in their relationships with the dead.
C. S. Lewis, after feeling the presence of his dead wife, acknowledged that the strength of the feeling did not constitute hard evidence about what actually happened. He then added, however: "If this was a throw-up from my unconscious, then my unconscious must be a far more interesting region than the depth psychologists have led me to expect."
We have no way of knowing what really happens in these experiences. We can do little more than speculate. But I suppose that after a death, speculating on the extraordinary unknown is the most ordinary of human activities.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from When the One You Love is Gone by Rebekah L. Miles. Copyright © 2012 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Introduction Field Notes for the Pilgrimage,
Chapter 1 Early Days: Wading Through Hell, Catching Glimpses of Glory,
Chapter 2 Making Our Way Through Rough Terrain,
Chapter 3 Finding Comfort and Hope in the Landscape of Grief,
Chapter 4 Reintegrating the Dead: Bringing the Dead Along with Us on the Journey,
Chapter 5 Finding Hope, Moral Purpose, and Spiritual Transformation in the Landscape of Grief,
Notes,