Let’s talk about death
Death is a taboo subject. We do not want to talk about it. We want to pretend it does not affect us. Yet it’s the ultimate statistic: one in every one person dies. It happens to 100 per cent of people and there is no escape. In fact, I am convinced that not talking about it is profoundly unhealthy. It cannot be a good thing to go through your life in denial of something as inevitable as your death. Apart from anything else, you need to be equipped to deal with the deaths of those closest to you.
At St Mary of Bethany Church we are about to start a sermon series thinking about life and death issues, a series which will take us through the All Saints/All Souls/Remembrance season, all the way to Advent. I have had some really interesting conversations as we planned this series. It would be safe to say that occasionally I have felt a little bit lonely in thinking it is a good idea to focus on what the Bible says about life, death and eternal life. Will our bereaved people find it triggering? How will we handle people who get upset on Sundays or in our small groups? I can understand why you might feel nervous; I cannot get away from the sense that this is yet another reason why the conversation is important. There is a buzz in our church family too – a sense that we want to support bereaved people around us well; an understanding that we have said goodbye to a fair few faithful church members over the last few years, and these are important issues to grasp.
For any pastoral minister, death is an everyday reality; part of your bread and butter. When I worked in book publishing and people asked me how I was doing, if it was a bad day I might say, ‘At least no one’s dead.’ I stopped saying this when I became a minister, because it is never true. There is always someone in your community who is dying or recently bereaved. For pastors with families, death is part of the dinnertime conversation, whether it is the complexities of organising a funeral or the things people say about their deceased loved one. It is one of the greatest privileges of my life that I sometimes spend time with someone at the point of their death, praying with them and helping them to be ready for what is to come. I have learned so much about God’s grace and goodness from being alongside the dying. Truly it is never too late and God can do amazing things at such a key moment.
In common with most people, I learned the most about death from my own bereavement journey. Seventeen years ago my father died, and my mother followed him suddenly, just three months later, 13 days before my wedding day. I was training for ordained ministry at the time; it turns out that God knows that I learn best through practical hands-on experience. What I learned in that very challenging season, I share with others now. One experienced pastor’s wife said to me at the time, ‘I’ve been ministering to bereaved people for decades, but going through it myself changed everything.’
What did I learn back then, that is worth sharing? Firstly, many people do not realise that anger is a universal feature of grief. I remember my mum reacting to something in a way that I found utterly out of proportion, soon after my dad died. It helped to know that her anger was being fed by her grief. It helped me that I was able to explain to the people closest to me that I would be much angrier for a season. I had to remind myself about this all too often.
Secondly, grief scrambles your brain. It is normal for a grieving person to struggle to maintain a train of thought, and this can be the case for months after their loved one’s death. When I meet with next of kin to plan a funeral, I tell them that I do not expect them to remember anything I say. When I was newly bereaved, I did not even know whether or not I was hungry. It was only when someone asked me, that I realised I was ravenous. I also remember endless cups of tea – I drank them, but I never had to make them. It is a fundamental British value that, if you don’t know what else to do, make a cup of tea! (I am not sure whether they teach this in school with other British values.)
The fact that death is taboo means that people often do not know how to support a grieving person well. People cross the road to avoid them. A buzz of conversation dies away when they sit down. I have heard many stories of the thoughtless things people have said. ‘When are you going to be back to normal?’ Er…my normal included someone who is not there any more, so I am not going back there. I am desperately reaching for a new normal, one which is probably years away. More than one person told me my mother’s death was ‘inconsiderate’, as though she had woken up that morning and decided that having a massive heart attack would be a great wheeze. Grief is a lonely business; in a very real sense, your journey is your own, because your relationship with your loved one was unique.
My top tip for supporting a grieving person is this: just be really kind. Ask them if they want to join you for a meal, or just drop round with food. Ask them if they want to talk about it; sometimes they will, and other times they will need to talk about absolutely anything else. Do not distance yourself and do not feel like you always have to have something to say. Remember anniversaries – their loved one’s birthday and the anniversary of the death are always significant. One of the most powerful stories of grief in the Bible is that of Job, who loses everything, including all of his grown-up children, in an utterly awful chain of events. Job’s friends famously get just about everything wrong, as they make the case to him that there must be some terrible things going on in his life for God to judge him like this. I think they do get one thing right, though: when they first arrive with Job, they sit with him in the dust and do not say a word for a solid seven days. (This would have been so culturally inappropriate that some commentators argue that this too is a mistake.) Sometimes being with a person who is grieving means just that: being with them. You do not forget the people who are with you when it counts.
Many of the things I have learned feel like they are really just common sense. When it is your time, it is your time – death does not call at fair or convenient moments. When you are about to be ordained in the Church of England, you have an interview with some worthy people, to make sure you are safe to launch on an unsuspecting parish. At my interview, two years after my parents’ deaths, I was asked whether my bereavement had shaken my faith. I was not surprised by the question, but this was my answer: if your belief system cannot cope with your elders getting sick and dying, often at very inconvenient moments, then it is worth reconsidering what you believe. I have always had a strong suspicion of anyone whose theology disintegrates on contact with the real world.
Sometimes there are no easy answers. Some deaths are unutterably tragic: the death of one’s child; murder; suicide; a terrible accident or overdose. Unlike the death of your elders, these seem to subvert the natural order of things. I would argue that the fact that they feel so terribly wrong points to our creator, who knows what it is to bleed and die a tragic death in the person of Jesus. The book of Psalms points us to a great truth: no matter how you’re feeling, pour it out to God. He is big enough to take it. I continue to do this after some of the tragedies I have seen.
In our sermon series, we will think about what the Bible says about living and dying. Is death something to fear? Where are the dead now? What will happen on the day of judgement? Will we have bodies in heaven? Our culture is really confused about these issues – many people who would not call themselves Christian reach for some kind of belief when a loved one dies, but they do not have any vocabulary for it. They want to feel like there is some kind of continuity; somehow we go on. After one funeral I took, as we walked out of the crematorium, the family released a dove into the air, with the cry, ‘Goodbye Dad!’ (This was not something they had mentioned when we prepared the funeral!) At the end of the film Titanic (spoiler alert!), survivor Rose lives to a ripe old age, raising children and grandchildren. When she dies, she is welcomed into the afterlife by her lover from 1912 and their fellow passengers – it is not clear what has become of her late husband or anyone else she has loved in the intervening years. Into this confusion, the Bible has some clear, helpful and comforting things to say. As God’s transforming people, we can equip each other to bless people as they face the everyday reality of death.
Recommended reading
What happens when I die? by Marcus Nodder
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
Living With Dying by Grace Sheppard
Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Podcasts
Matters of Life and Death – Tim & John Wyatt, Premier Unbelievable
Where there’s a will, there’s a wake – Kathy Burke, Somethin Else (if you can cope with a sweary, funny and very secular approach)