Goodbye

I am not "feeling" the writing thing for the moment. I may feel different tomorrow. Today one of the dearest members of our congregation died. Now, I think I have probably done close to 50 or 60 memorial services in my 8 years of ministry, and I want to say, that in some way, I'm really good at death, dying, bereavement and comfort. I have been in numerous rooms and homes with dead and dying bodies and it does not freak me out. I find something very beautiful in death. I see so many similarities to the birthing process of a mother. This morning when I went to see M. she was struggling to breathe and was in a fair amount of distress and struggle. I left her room around 12:30 pm. They had just administered some morphine and in the 10 minutes before I left, I could see she was beginning to ease a bit. I got an email that she had died around 2 pm. Once the tension was released, the process of dying was quick and, I hope, relatively painless.

All of this being said, I'm sad. M. was 89 years old and she went to church her whole life. She told me numerous times that she was ready to go home. Her husband died last July and her daughter died a number of years ago. She loved her family and was a very smart woman. She had her mind until nearly the end. I will miss our talks. She would always apologize for being a burden. I would always tell her she was a gift. I know she was ready, but I was not.

I really don't understand why God wants us to feel this sort of pain and loss. It makes no sense to me and as a minister, well, that's a pretty risky thing to say. All of this turmoil could simply be the after effects of turning 50 in October. Whatever the reason, I don't like it.

Poets say it best. From Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes:"

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world

- Mary Oliver