"If I Should Die Before I Wake"
One of the great Divines of the past, John Baillie, wrote “It is not really the shortness of life that saddens and offends us, it is its temporality, not that it ends so soon, but that it ends at all; and still more deeply the fact that even while it lasts, it is made up of nothing but endings, of meetings and partings, of memories and longings, and of one thing after another.”
We may or may not identify with the downside of Baillie’s attitude, but sadness there is thinking of the loss of those we love.
Loss, Death and Grief. What can we do about it?
An old story tells of a farmer plowing the ground one spring after the thaw had left muddy valleys in the field. After a time the tractor got stuck in the mud. The harder the farmer tried to get it out, the deeper it sank into the ooze of the earth. Finally, that farmer went to a neighbor for help and the neighbor came over to assess the situation. “By golly,” he thought, “the tractor is stuck in the mud for darn sure.” Shaking his head, he said, “It doesn’t look good, does it?” “It doesn’t look good but I’ll give it a try, pulling you out.” “But if we can’t get it out, I’ll come sit in the mud with you.”
It’s a mildly humorous way of talking about “help” when there isn’t much help one can give other than “mud sitting.” Sometimes it feels that way when there has been a death, a loss, and grief. “Mud sitting” seems to be about all one can do. There is actually a little more that can be done if you are friend, but it may seem that the most we can do for someone in grief is to “be there,” be there despite anguish and tears, pain, emotion, shock, and fear. “Be there,” despite the mud of reality.
As a minister I have had first-hand acquaintance with death. It never gets familiar to me, as regular and inevitable as it is, never gets to be ordinary. But it is “natural.” It can be understood. Those things that relate to it can be dealt with logically. It is not a mystery.
All sorts of events, numberless as blades of grass, are experienced as loss and will bring on grief, not alone the death of the body of mature persons, or suicides, or stillbirths, or early death by accident, addiction, or sudden fatal illness.
Divorce is accompanied by suffering and grief. So is rape. The loss of a job is, the loss of a home is, the loss of a favorite possession is. Separation, the birth of a retarded child, a long life-threatening illness, catastrophic events in family life, the threat of poverty, all of these and more such second-by-second happenings in humanity’s life leave people hurt and grieving.
Today I shall talk about grief following death, but remember, much of what is said will apply to grief for other reasons. Many of you have read Kubler Ross and other death and dying writers; perhaps Judith Viorst's book Necessary Losses; Jane Moffatt’s In the Midst of Winter. They are good books. The observation on Patterns of Recovery by Bernadine Kreis and Alice Pattie are helpful. My own experience has instructed me over and over, both to the need for going not merely through the motions (of what the world expects), but throught the emotions which the griever will feel. From my experiences and these readings, and others like them, today’s sermon ideas are drawn.
Grief: First, there is the grief of those who are losing their lives and know it (all of us are, if we think about it). But, more immediately, people grieve for themselves when they experience extreme serious illness or the threats of illness in advanced age; people grieve over their own death and the loss of this world and of the people they love.
You have read about or have heard here about grief for the self and of the stages that some people, at least, seem to go through in confronting, denying, fighting, bargaining, and accepting, eventually, the inevitability of dying.
“Mud Sitting”: (1) being there for them, (2) listening, (3) not being afraid to talk about whatever they want to talk about, (4) remembering them with tenderness, (5) caring and making the first move toward them, (6) and the next, (7) and the next, (8) and the next. These are things to do for those who may be dying.
Always remember: they may, and we hope and pray that they will (and many do), recover. So never forget that so long as he or she is alive, he or she is a person, a full-fledged individual who needs and deserves our response to the dignity of their personhood right to the very end.
After a death though, what then? What about the grief of the survivors? How should we act? How best might they act?
There are generally three stages of widely varying lengths of time for each of grief: shock, suffering, and recovery.
When a death occurs, the close survivor is thrown into shock. They will feel pulled in two directions at one. They will be disoriented.
- They will need sympathy, yet will feel cut off and alienated.
- They will feel “near-dead” themselves, yet half-alive.
- They will feel bitterness, anger, and hatred while needing love and understanding.
- They will feel “so” weary that they’ll think they will never move again, yet they will be restless and sleepless.
- They will feel too many things and thoughts are coming at once, alternating with the feeling of nothingness and nothing at all.
- They will feel they have martyred themselves, yet feel guilty for never having done enough!
- They can be acutely “aware,” yet clear thinking will elude them.
- They will feel left out, left along, betrayed, abandoned, unloved, unlovely, and unlovable.
They will be, you see, IN SHOCK!
People will come by and comfort them for a while, but Americans, given our culture of suspicion about emotions, will expect them to shape up and much too soon.
Shock in some cases may last only a week, it is true, but it can go on for a month or a year or longer. People are different!
It takes unbelievable energy in the new griever just to live, just to exist, merely to put one foot in front of the other.
They may wonder why their friends don’t know this. The grieving person is often put to work comforting the visitor because the visitor doesn’t know what to do or say and load responsibility on the one who is hurting.
Grieving people have to forgive some of their friends because the friend is not grief-oriented, may not know how to handle grief. They may call on you, the survivor, once or twice, and then leave it up to you to do the reaching back.
This is foolishness, of course, but it is not cruel. It is just (and it’s too bad that it is so) that people in our culture deny to others’ emotions they deny themselves.
So, though this additional burden is unfair, to say the least, the grieving person has to try not to get angry over the meager responses of others to his or her grief. They don’t know how truly devastated you are, how looking at life and going on with life are incredibly difficult for you.
Some good friends, however, will “hang in there” with you, thank God and Fate herself. Some will keep on reaching out to and for you so long as you need it.
Cherish them. Be grateful. Get some counseling if need be—grief counseling—from a professional. Most of us can be helped by it.
Shock: Express what you’re feeling in shock. Rant and rave and cry and pound the pillow, wail and gnash your teeth and beat the trees. “Get it out!” as Freda Carnes suggested.
If you do not do your grieving, and I have seen it happen, the loss and build-up and burden and fury can come back and hit you in the back of the head two years later or even five or 15!
Realize that when you’re in shock what you are feeling is irrational and that’s okay, by jehosophat!
You may be angry! You may rebel! It’s all right! I read about a minister’s wife in grief who did that. Her husband, the minister in a little country church, had been out on Christmas Eve buying her a present. What could have seemed more virtuous at the time than that? And he had dropped dead in the department store.
Kenneth was his name. He had died in the act of marital devotion, Christmas shopping. His wife wore a red hat to the funeral service – a red hat! Her husband had not believed in black for mourning. Besides, he loved her in a red hat!
But later when she had recovered from the “shock” of grief or reflection, Elizabeth, the wife, knew that she had picked “that way” to rebel against what she thought that rural congregations’ expectations were.
They thought, so she thought, that she should be strong and controlled, and ready to comfort them because they had lost their minister. But she was not grieving for the congregation, not even for the minister. She was grieving for man—the man who had been her husband! She needed and wanted and deserved to receive the tender loving care that children receive, because grievers are like children in their need for a time. No human being is so self-sufficient she or he never needs tender loving care.
In shock, you may feel strong, sometimes negative emotions. Forgive yourself for them! Don’t hold onto them forever because they will eat you up, but don’t chew yourself out for having had them either. For a time they’re all right. No wonder you’re furious!
Aunt Mary came by the house. Your mother was dead. You had not even had the service yet. And Aunt Mary said, “I just wanted to get word to you that I would like to have your mother’s diamond pin. She always knew I loved it.”
Now, there is enough GROSS to turn you into a guerrilla warrior! Forgive yourself strong feelings! Some are justified! And some come out of shock and you’re entitled!
Let yourself weep. Find a sympathetic listener. To those who give you warmth, reciprocate; reach out and touch a sympathetic hand. But do not sink into despair.
You are going to have to rejoin the human race. Feel what you feel and be open to heal as you can heal. And when we, the friends, go to see a griever, for God’s sake stay away from dropping clichés on them like “time will heal everything,” and please don’t say, “I know how you feel.” Chances are you don’t. Even if you also have suffered grief it is better for your friend that they “feel” your empathy than that you try to tell them how they feel.
(1) go to them, (2) answer the door, (3) answer the phone, (4) brew some coffee, (5) take some food, (6) make phone calls, (7) send telegrams, (8) sit with them, (9) hold their hand if that is accepted, (10) let them talk, and (11) talk about the dead, not about politics or the weather or the neighbors, or religion – talk about the dead!
If you have suggestions or help to offer, make it specific, not vague! Don’t get the griever to think up things to keep you busy just because you are uncomfortable.
First comes shock! Then comes suffering and it is worse than the shock. By the time you’re into suffering, people have gone home. Relatives have left. You’re supposed to be recovering, everyone thinks. And though you demand that of yourself, too, you’re not yet recovering, you’re suffering.
Oh, it’s true, you cannot go on “forever” about your suffering to everyone. They won’t understand. You’ll lose friends that way.
Again, they are not evil. They just can’t handle it; or they don’t know how; or they fear their own mortality; or what might happen to them if they lost someone.
So you suffer and some of it “alone.” You go through additional feelings of anger and of rebellion, then guilt; the weariness continues. Aloneness becomes oppressive, worse than loneliness. It is an existential angst, aloneness as vast as the universe.
You can’t concentrate! You’re suffering. That’s the time you should go, maybe, for counseling or see your minister for spiritual guidance. See a counselor for psychological help if you just can’t seem to get going again.
But do not be surprised that it goes on for a long time. What you are experiencing in grief is natural. To suffer over loss is certainly not surprising. Do not demand “recovery” of yourself before you have even left the first stirrings of hope, some stirrings that will give you clues of your recovery.
Recovery (not the overcoming of grief, you never overcome it): The loss will always be a loss, but recovery, getting better, rejoining life will be felt when you notice you’re beginning to make some free choices again. There is less leaning, less of apathy, some faint feelings of hope. You discover that someone needs you again—family, work, church, some organization. You will regress on anniversaries, at holiday times, on important dates and that’s normal! But you will begin to rise out of the darkness, too.
Laughter will come occasionally and may startle you. In shock, you may have laughed or giggled. That was irrational then. Now your humor is beginning to return and it is rational, logical that it should. You may feel guilty about it at first. Why am I amused? It is not appropriate, for I am in grief! I should not be amused! But no, it is appropriate. It is not disloyal. It is part of a return to life that the one you have lost would want for you.
Recovery. You will begin to feel there is some reason you are still alive (whether you think of it theologically, or as a gift of fate; humanistically, existentially. You are alive! There are reasons to survive!
If ever you feel suicidal during the time of grief, seek help! Don’t be foolish. Don’t go it alone. But also realize that your despair at that time is natural. The feeling that there is nothing to live for is natural and will past. Hold on—hold on, for it too shall pass. You won’t believe it, but it will! Then you may for a time yourself feel afraid of dying. Then you’ll feel self-pity. And you’ll feel just plain lousy. But go on. These are, all of these feelings and fears, natural. Natural, but they are not, nor should they be the end of reasons for living!
Become the new person you are going to be—(in part) “new” person. And the other side of recovery is should you recover more quickly than someone else might—suppose you recover in six months—then do not pretend you are in grief any longer. Be who you are! It’s okay. If that is a surprise to others, that you are beginning to feel better or to feel good some of the time, then that really is their problem, isn’t it?
And realize that some of that guilt you may have felt with respect to the deceased was also normal. Forgive yourself for the slights and the fights and the failures in your relationship. You would want others to forgive themselves had you died first and they had lived. You’re not perfect. You were not. They were not and won’t be. So forgive yourself and be kind to yourself.
I officiated at two weddings yesterday. In both of them I said to the couples at the end, “May your days be good, and your lives be long upon this earth.”
If it may be, I hope that is so for you. But whatever the length of your life (or your acquaintance with grief), may you feel something of the gratitude that Ann Rachel Cook, who died in California last April, felt as she wrote these words:
Dear One(s), By the time you get this, my time to die will have come. I will have been cremated and my ashes scattered over the Pacific. At my request there will have been no services of any kind. Any memorializing, I want to be done by me for the blessings and the joy you have given me, and for the love and concern you have shown me throughout my very long life. So do not shed any tears over my leaving this world. All I ask in the way of immorality is that you remember me for a little while. So I bid you a fond farewell. Ann Cook
O thou Great Spirit of Compassion, whose presence is in us and around us: Grant us rest in the strength and shelter of your being with the memory of the wholesome, the holy, and the pure. Send us in-sight, (as from visible light in the firmament) of serene warmth received from dying people who have given to us a living faith.
Let us be together now in this gathering of hope; then leave the congregation today strengthened for death, while believing in life…
Amen.
These things were shared by Freda Carnes. Paul, some of you remember, was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Steps to Survival by Freda Carnes: Let your grief out! Let your feelings go! Have a tantrum! Acknowledge your feelings and express them! Break something, tear something. You can knead bread. You can blow up balloons, keeping in mind that you are filling them with all the frustration, anger, and guilt that is bothering you.
Acknowledge your stress! Let yourself hurt! A part of you has died, too. Admit it! Let bad moments come and deal with them or they will come back twofold. However, give yourself permission to postpone them if they come at inappropriate times.
Don’t take chances with your health. Watch your diet. Get rest. Don’t get hooked on tranquilizers or alcohol. Exercise! Walk, swim or do yoga! Move your body and you’ll feel better and look better, and have a better attitude.
Know when you’re out of your depth and ask for help. Ask three people whom you respect and consider knowledgeable. If two agree, do that (what they say). Find enough compassionate listeners you can talk to. I say enough because you may need to talk more than your family and friends can take. Be warned though; ministers are rarely good for this. Freda should know. Find or build a support group. Only someone who has had the same journey, who has similarly experienced grief, can really understand.
Be receptive! Say “yes” to most invitations, last minute or other at first. You can be more selective later. Don’t expect people to beat a path to your door. Accept the challenge of making a new and continuing life for yourself with roots in the past, but another kind of life for the future.
Holidays are a problem. Recognize this in advance and plan ahead. Join others or invite someone to be with you, depending upon your strength.
Plan your weeks so that you do something “special” each week, preferably something you have not done before. Buy two tickets and invite someone you would like to know to go to an event with you. Ask people in. Couples don’t invite you, but will accept your invitation.
Companionship with the opposite sex. Friends of both you and your spouse “can” be best. You do not want to replace but to re-invest as you work toward recovery. But, especially if you are a widow of a certain age (given the statistics), accept the fact that the odds are against finding an eligible mate. Most older men are married and temporary affairs are usually a dead end street.
Learn to be more self-sufficient and independent. There are worse things than being alone in a house or apartment. Traveling alone may not be appealing but it is not BAD, and a marriage “can” be.
Schedule something for the “Coming Home” times. Dinnertime is (or can be) a very lonely hour. It literally drives some to drink. Volunteer to work at such a time; take courses that start at 6:00 p.m. Don’t assume that others know what is going on with you. You have to tell them. Say, “I am having a bad day!” or “I am having a bad life.”
Buy a new address book and put in it only the names of those people you want to keep in touch with in your “new” life. Don’t throw away the old one but starting a new one is symbolic and practical.
And practice hugging! It helps especially at this time. And your sense of humor: Find “something” to laugh about each day. Your sense of humor is your “ticket to sanity.” With a sense of humor, memories begin to bring comfort; warmth instead of pain and tears.
Then, one those days when nothing seems to work, do the All-American thing. Charge it! Take your charge card and go out and buy something, anything from a hairdo to a house (within some general limits)!
Finally, learn who you are! Give up any attempt to return to who you used to be. When your mate died you and your world changed. How life continues is up to you. Here the reading ends.
Join with me please now in the thoughtful spirit of meditation and prayer:
Eternal One:
We do not need any more sense to be knocked
into our heads.
Life kicks up around enough as it is.
But to accept ourselves,
no matter what has come before,
and to say ‘yes” to life
no matter what is yet to be,
to go forward to fulfill our existence.
For this we will need all we can get
of patient courage through delicate self-negotiation.
For this we pray in the name of compassion.
