| Finding Peace in Grief by Edward P. Allen
We come together at a funeral not only to pay our last respects to someone we love and to acknowledge the end of a life we have shared, but also to minister to each other's needs. The dead are at peace. It is up to us to help find peace for the living. The burial service tries to meet these several needs. In its almost stark simplicity it honors rich and poor alike, for in death we are all equal. The burial service gently but firmly brings us to the final acceptance of the reality of this particular death as we commend someone so recently alive to their final resting place - here on earth, and in the presence of God. But it also speaks to us in our need, for at the time of death it is possible for six emotions to be surging within us, and if we are to know peace, they must be ministered to. The first and most obvious of the emotions is grief - that bottomless sorrow that sweeps over us in endless waves of loneliness and pain as we realize that we will never see someone we love again. The next most common feeling is one of regret, for every human relationship is imperfect. In every life we share there are things we have always meant to say, kind and appreciative words that we never got around to expressing. And likewise, there are words or actions that we wanted to undo, take back, or at least do over - and we never got around to them either. Then death comes along as a sudden and terrible judge - and we have to face ourselves as we really are: full of unfulfilled promises, procrastinators in the art of love. It is painful to see ourselves as we are; it is painful to know that we will never have another chance to change the way death left our relationship with the person who has died. Sometimes those who grieve are uncomfortable to find that they are angry, and yet it is a very natural response to pain. When we have been hurt, the instinctive reaction is to strike back, and we can do so in a variety of ways. We can be angry with the one who has died: "Look at all the problems you have left me to deal with alone!" Or we can be angry with everyone around us, snappish and rude to the rest of the family. And if we can't find anyone else to blame, we may turn on God and cry, "Why did you have to do this to me?" We may be embarrassed by our anger, and yet, because we are imperfect people for whom nothing can ever work out perfectly, anger may well be our most common emotion. Yet common though anger may be, it may not surface for several months. Our hurt and resentment may be hidden by all the other feelings and duties with which we must cope. It is not unusual to find feelings of relief following a death. In cases of protracted suffering, or where a long period of pain has been avoided, the feeling is a natural one and few people have trouble accepting a sense of gladness mixed in with the sorrow. But some people are uncomfortable when they feel thankful that death has been a welcome solution to an otherwise insoluble problem. It is hard for them to see anything good in death, and so they feel guilty when they have a perfect right to be grateful for the release that death can bring. As a matter of fact, the traditional Christian teaching has been that we should meet death with joy, but I fear that such teaching was easier to accept when life was far more brutish and uncertain than it is now. There can also be either the two fears present at the time of death. The first fear is of our own mortality, for when death comes close to us, it reminds us of how much closer it will ultimately come. Few of us have made our peace with what we know is true: that at a time not of our choosing and under conditions over which we have no control, our own life will end. Most of the time we can, and do, ignore this piece of reality, but there are times when it forces itself upon us. The last emotion and the second fear that we may find at the time of death of someone very dear to us is a fear of the future. This is most likely to be present when it is a husband or wife who has died. The Church and the State agree that in marriage two bodies become one, but we do not realize how real the union is until one-half of the body dies. The survivor is only half what he or she was, and the radical surgery of death leaves the widow or widower physically weaker for awhile. Wounded and alone, the survivor looks down the days and years ahead and they seem empty and dark - and that is frightening.
It is to these powerful feelings that the burial service speaks. For our grief the words from the Bible and the prayers remind us that the dead live in God, and we are assured that we ourselves are never beyond God's care. Then it should not be too hard for us to put these two parts of our faith together and realize that in the mystery and love of God the living and the dead are not separated. For our guilt that a relationship has ended with things left undone which we ought to have done, and things done which we out not to have done, nothing speaks more directly to us than the Lord's Prayer. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." For just as our half of the relationship ended imperfectly, so it ended imperfectly on the other side. Will we refuse to forgive someone we love for being human? And if we can be forgiving of another, why can't we be as generous with ourselves? This is a time when everyone else is being kind to us; we need to be kind to ourselves. And what do we do about our anger? What do we do about our sense of injustice that cries out for explanation, especially if the one who has died was young or suffered much? What do we do with our Why? Why? Why? to which no one can give satisfaction? How do we deal with the feeling that we have been abandoned - if not downright betrayed - by God? Well, it seems to me that the first thing we have to do is to be honest about our anger. It seems to me that Christianity has much more to do with being honest than with being good. For if a man is honest, you can talk to him, but if a man thinks he is good, he may not hear a thing you have to say. So be honest about your anger. Tell God how you feel. Ask him the questions no one else can answer and tell him you're not leaving until you get satisfaction. It may take half the night, but you will get your answer. I cannot tell you what that answer will be because it will be an answer to your particular questions, but it will be an answer that comes with the knowledge that God has not left you alone. And now our fears. The burial service helps us face the inevitability and the unpredictability of our death by letting us see it as a natural part of life. Those of you who come to funerals are making this adjustment and are preparing yourselves to face our final and ultimate limitation. It's those who avoid funerals for whom we need to be concerned. If they cannot face their fear, how can they face their own end? They need all the help we can give them before it is too late to help them at all. The fear of the future that afflicts the bereaved is not resolved by any words of the service. It is those who surround the grieving who by their presence say, "Look up and see! The future is neither empty nor cold for we are here and we will people the future for you." May these brief comments help you to hear the words of the burial service as it ministers to your pains and fears so that you may be strengthened to help others through their grief. By the grace of God we know that we neither live or die alone.
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