A Good Grief

I’m not at church today. My dad died. That’s direct, I know, and may shock some and cause you to gasp. I’ve been playing with the phrase “passed on to the everlasting life” but I truly believe that our everlasting life begins with the physical life we are in so I’m not sure that is a good theological statement about death. I don’t like that in our modern western culture we work so hard at pretending we can avoid death. We make aging a disease rather than a part of the amazing gift of life that God has given us. This pretending does not equip us to live well or to grieve well when someone we love dies.

My dad’s mom, my grandmother, lived and aged more gracefully than anyone I’ve ever known. She wasn’t afraid of getting older. She said she ‘earned’ every wrinkle and gray hair by living the best life she could. To her, the ‘best life’ wasn’t about things but about loving God and others well. I’ve tried to emulate that. People who knew her her whole life would say to me, “you look just like her when she was your age” and I’ve always held that close to my heart. I tried for much of my life to be like her before gaining the wisdom that I have to be who God created me to be and that all that she taught me by the way she lived her life is part of who I am.

It’s the same with my dad. Part of his everlasting life is that he is a part of me and my siblings, and all of his grandchildren and many others whose lives he helped shape. I don’t claim to know for certain what happens when our physical life on this earth is done (since I’m a priest, that statement may shock some of you, too). Jesus tells us we will be with him but he also tells us he will be with us in this life. He just doesn’t tell us exactly how that all works. I’m ok with that mystery. Jesus spends much more time showing us in flesh and blood what it is to live this life well than he does talking about what’s next. Eternity doesn’t begin when we die; eternity already is. Our faith in God isn’t an after-life insurance policy. Our relationship with God is the foundation of who and Whose we are: beloved children of God who are created and called to be image bearers of God’s love in this world so that others know they are beloved image bearers. My dad did this well. My grandmother did this well.

In the beginning, God created us (and all things) and calls us good. God created us in and through love so that we could love. The greatest and most dangerous gift God gave us was free-will. God knew we would misuse it for our own gain, but in order for us to have the capacity to love we have to have free-will. Love isn’t forced or coerced or controlled. Love is given and received freely. (I’m not talking hallmark love but self-giving, other-focused, always-growing-in-emotional-maturity, walking-with love.) My grandmother and my dad loved well.

As we have begun the process of going through all of Dad’s stuff, I came across a notebook filled with my grandmother’s handwriting. When she was grieving my granddaddy’s death, she wrote him letters in this notebook, telling him what she was up to, how sad she was, who had been to visit her, and how she was learning to live without his physical presence but with the wisdom that he was always a part of who she is. She grieved well.

My dad and my grandmother have always been my ‘touchpoints’ – those people to whom I turned when I had something to celebrate, when I was struggling, when life was just an ordinary routine. They were my wisdom people who helped me navigate life and when I didn’t navigate it well, they walked with me without guilting or shaming me. Now that Dad has died, I’m feeling a bit unmoored. And yet, I know he is part of who I am and always will be. I pray that with God’s help, I will do this grief thing well. As we love, we grieve.