An Early Goodbye on a Sunday Morning

On a Sunday I was called in to the hospital just before six in the morning to be with a family whose loved one had died only a few hours earlier. This was my first on call. On the drive to the hospital I was attempting to do two things: wake up and figure out what on earth to do and say. I arrived at the hospital and went directly to the nurse’s station on the particular floor. The nurses appeared relieved to see me, and I was relieved that they were relieved.

The sister of the deceased was also at the nurse’s station. After making introductions, I invited the sister into the waiting room, and she described to me some of the family’s story. The mother had endured a lot of tragedy and death of loved ones over the past year not least her husband, and she had not processed much of her grief. The sister explained that earlier that morning the mother was visibly angry. The wife and two children were also in the room. The wife was clearly trying to hold herself together. The son meandered in and out of the room, and the daughter sobbed trying to hold back her tears. The deceased man in his forties died of a variety of issues including liver and kidney problems. The sister explained he had a “drinking problem” but continued to drink even when he was warned about his medical condition.

At this point I could not think of the situation becoming any more delicate and complicated. Then the sister said, “I thought maybe a word from you…” She trailed off and assumed that I knew what she wished for me to do. I construed her words and expression to be a request for me to assuage the situation with a few feeble words. Perhaps because I was too tired to be anxious, I felt at ease, and I calmly held the sister’s hand and explained that I was here for them and would remain with them for as long as they wished.

When we entered the patient’s room, the mother was standing over her son’s body, and the wife and two kids sat across from the foot of the bed. The mother looked at me with a blank stare. I introduced myself first to the mother and then to the wife and kids. The room’s silence felt heavy, and words felt like they would be worse than silence; words felt like they would be trivial. After a few moments the mother made a move to sit down, and I helped her to a seat. I held her hand and had my arm around her shoulders, and we sat there for what seemed like a rather long time. Then she looked up at me and began to smile and whispered, “thank you.”

I gathered the family together and offered to say a prayer. It was probably one of the simplest prayers I have ever prayed, though I do not remember the contents of the prayer exactly. With what little and few words they could muster, the family thanked me. The deceased’s daughter’s sobbing turned into weeping, and the deceased’s mother (the daughter’s grandmother) embraced her and said quietly, “Jesus understands.” The mother’s mood seemed to have shifted from anger to beautiful care. I was deeply moved by the mother’s embrace of her young granddaughter. 

The wife of the deceased took her two kids home, and the mother of the deceased returned to the bedside. She began to stroke his face and then kissed his cheek. Tears came to my eyes as I watched her tuck her son into bed one last time.

Through this entire ordeal I was praying, and when I was praying aloud with the family, I was also praying silently for what to say. Questions were roaming through my mind: what could I possibly say to comfort a wife, mother, sister, daughter, and son? I was outside the land where words seemed useful. This relatively young man died only a few hours ago, and he did not die a heroic death. 

It felt like there were probably a hundred right things to do in this situation and ten thousand wrong things to do. I cannot judge how each person understood my presence that morning, and I do not remember everything I said nor could I justify every move I made.

These are occasions when I am reminded that our often-assumed control over life is an illusion. We are vulnerable and fragile creatures. I was also reminded in part why I am becoming a pastor and why I headed into theology in the first place. Our own mortality looms large, and the road leading up to death involves all sorts of joy and heartache and perplexing questions. 

Lament for a Son

Nicholas Wolterstorff is a professor of philosophical theology at Yale Divinity School. In Lament for a Son, he reflects on the loss of his twenty-five year old son Eric, who died in a mountain climbing accident. Wolterstorff recalls fond memories of his son and the pain of his absence. Wolterstorff gives advice for those who want to comfort grieving friends and reflects on hope. The depth of reflection in this brief book has been helpful for me as I am living alongside people who are grieving. In our congregation, a mother recently lost her son. I plan to reread this book again and again. I would do a terrible injustice to this book if I merely described or summarized it. I would encourage any and all to read it; it’s brief but deep. The following are snippets from the book.

“Born on a snowy night in New Haven, he died twenty-five years later on a snowy slope in Kaisergebirger.”

 “He loved the mountains, loved them passionately…his love was his death.”

“We took him for granted. Perhaps we all take each other too much for granted. The routines of life distract us; our own pursuits make us oblivious; our anxieties and sorrows, unmindful. The beauties of the familiar go unremarked. We do not treasure each other enough.”

“It’s so wrong, so profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents. It’s hard enough to bury our parents. But that we expect.”

“Death is the great leveler, so our writers have always told us. Of course they are right. But they have neglected to mention the uniqueness of each death – the solitude of suffering which accompanies that uniqueness. We say, ‘I know how you are feeling.’ But we don’t.”

“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.”

“There’s a hole in the world now. In the place where he was, there’s now just nothing. A center, like no other, of memory and hope and knowledge and affection which once inhabited this earth is now gone.”

“What do you say to someone who is suffering? Some people are gifted with words of wisdom. For such, one is profoundly grateful. There were many such for us. But not all are gifted in that way. Some blurted out strange, inept things. That’s OK too. Your words don’t have to be wise. The heart that speaks is heard more than words spoken.”

“The world looks different now. The pinks have become purple, the yellows brown. Mountains now wear crosses on their slopes.”

“For a long time I knew that God is not the impassive, unresponsive, unchanging being portrayed by classical theologians…but strangely his suffering I never saw. God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into his heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God…Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.”

“In the valley of suffering, despair and bitterness are brewed. But there also character is made. The valley of suffering is the vale of soul making…How do I receive my suffering as blessing while repulsing the obscene thought that God jiggled the mountain to make me better?”  

“Will I hear Eric say someday, really now I mean: ‘Hey Dad, I’m back.’ ‘But remember, I made all this, and raised my Son from the dead, so…’ OK. So goodbye Eric, goodbye, goodbye, until we see.”