Death is always close

 

Today I went to a memorial service.  He was 3 years older than my father.

The air outside is filled with the death of millions of trees far away.  I can't be outside and breathe well.

On Sunday I went to the grave of a child who died several years ago.  There is still no headstone, just a fading laminated sign somehow still attached to its wooden stake.

I didn't get the job I was desperately hoping for.  I didn't even get past the resume round.  

But the hostile and toxic boss I was going to have to start reporting to later this month moved to a different part of our organization, so I won't have to report to her.  She will still be in the group, still poisoning the other managers in the group against me, but I won't have to try to interact regularly with her 1:1.  Some of my desperation to get that job is removed.

I randomly came across some notes from my last actively hostile toxic boss, and, wow.  Things are so much better with my current passively toxic boss.  He doesn't do anything, but he doesn't lie about it, and he doesn't get mad at me when he messes up.  He also doesn't seem to get mad at himself and try to improve either, but . . .

I found out about the death of the man 3 years older than my father yesterday.  I knew him through the church I went to for a while in graduate school.  I was in the chancel choir with his wife.  I saw him every year at the State Fair.  Much of the church's budget comes from running the dining hall at the state fair.  He was in charge of organizing the massive effort of volunteers and a few paid staff to keep the dining hall going.  I would also sometimes see him at my local Whole Foods where he worked part time in retirement because he could.  He was a pretty magical guy.  He made the dining hall fun while also acknowledging how bonkers it could be.  I didn't see him last year, but I figured it was because our shifts just didn't overlap (he had stepped down from leading it some years ago).  I had no  idea it was because he was dying.

His family had lots of notice.  They had time to prepare during the year+ that he was in-home hospice.  And his death was a month ago.  But I just found out yesterday.  The grief for me is raw and fresh.  

I am always rubbish at memorial services.  I just cry.  If I lived in a culture where weeping at funerals was a respected profession, I would be a champion.  But I don't, so I just feel awful.  I can't bring comfort; only sadness and tears and being so choked up I can't even speak.  I feel like I'm a burden to the bereaved family.  I don't want them to spend their limited emotional energy comforting me.  

But sometimes I feel like I NEED to go.  To acknowledge and make space to just be sad that I will not see that person again this side of heaven. (And be happy remembering the good times.)  To carve out that space and time.  

"He wasn't a religious man, but he believed in community," his brother said.  And the community that gathered to celebrate his life was the amen.

I am crying now.  The tears are always close.

I wonder if I should approach the child's family about the headstone.  I know they have the money because there was a fundraiser for it, and they said at the time that they had enough but just didn't have the wherewithal to finalize the headstone and installation.  I fully understood that.  But it has been years, and they are finally getting their feet under them again.  If I bring it up, could I help get it done and take some of the burden off of them?  Or will it just churn up the guilt cycle?

It's been a week. Death is always close.  People are dying.  People are being treated as less-made-in-the-image-of-God than others.  People are treating others badly.  The grief feels close.  The tears are always close.

Love anyway.  Love God.  Love your neighbor. Love yourself.  We're all walking each other home, as the song says.  And love, as the Bible says, is strong as death.  

Somehow.

why is this death so hard

for Bruce Edwards

Why is this death so hard
to handle?  Because it was
sudden?  Because he was a
good man?  Because we were
looking forward to the new
Sara Groves album, and he
was deep into the World
Series and had just made
new friends on Facebook
and because now we will
never have the chance to
talk about writing again
on this side, and I can't
stop crying, even though
we didn't know each other
very well at all, and I should
go see if he autographed
his book for me, but I can't
quite bear to look?  His absence
already looms large even
though his presence in my
life was such a small, warm
and steady light.  Lord,
grant him rest eternal in
perpetual light.  Amen.

Do what you know

“We’re all dying because of chronic disease because of bad behavior. It’s not enough to go see the doctor once a year and have him tell you what to do. It’s not that people don’t know what to do, it’s that they don’t do what they know,” says Lavoie, co-director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre in Canada.

When I read the above article (part of keeping up on current med-tech trends for work), I found myself struck by the above statement.  And how much it made me think of a Bible passage where the writer talks about how the one who believes will keep Christ's commandments, not just talk about them.  And that passage in the Bible where the writer talks about how frustrating it is that we don't do the things we want to/should do (but instead do the things we don't want to do because we are trapped in this body of death).

To paraphrase: It's not enough to go to church every Sunday (even a doctrinally solid church) and be told what to do.  We know what to do, really.  We just don't do it.  Do we not really believe it?  Are we being lazy?  I think that one passage about doing what we don't want to do and who can save us from this body of death ends with one of those long, rolling, buoying passages about how Christ saved us, will save us, is saving us, and all praise to Him.  Amen.  But we're also told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.  We are told to do what He commanded.  We are told our actions should reflect where are hearts are, what we really, truly believe.  Sometimes, our actions mostly reflect laziness and sloppy thinking.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the health research and study results.  Today, They definitely conclude that this behavior Will Kill You.  In two years, They will proclaim that this behavior is The Best Ever.  It's hard to know what's really healthy sometimes.

But we all know the basics.

• eat more unprocessed foods, especially whole grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables.
• move more (get up and walk around, challenge your muscles and your cardiovascular system).
• don't stress yourself out over things you can't control.
• do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.
• be a good steward.
• love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
• love your neighbor as yourself.

We know the basics, but do we do them?

If we really believe they are important, won't our actions and behaviors change to reflect what we really believe?  I pray it may be so for me.

Requiem for Harold

We compared stories of sliding on the icy roads last week in the elevator. This week, I have to adjust to the fact that no matter how many times I leave the building in the morning, he will never be there to tell me, "Have a good day," with that huge, adorable grin, and I will never be able to say, "You, too," with varying degrees of exhaustion.

It's even harder to go downstairs to go to work knowing we'll never have that conversation again, despite all the times we've already had it. I couldn't make it to his memorial service. He died suddenly at age 65, that's all the obit says.

I haven't even had time to write a letter to his wife telling her how much I appreciated him. I haven't seen her since, which seems right to me. I never saw her without him. I hope I don't just start crying the next time I do see her. I'm sure she's tired of crying.

He was a kind man, and I will miss him.