It is November, with its Feasts of All Saints and All Souls Day. On these days I do remember people who figured prominently in my life, people with whom I identified myself. Many of them were relatives, the familiar people whose faces I can picture and voices I can remember. They were the voices of home, of summertime, and Sundays and holidays, and meals together with all the simple joys. I can see before me the faces of grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and nephews and nieces, god-fathers. Their memory bring back happy times and some situations touched by suffering. Et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, “and for all who rest in Christ.” How much meaning these words have gathered.
So many people I loved are gone. In the language of St. Paul and the early Christians, they “fell asleep.” Mk. 5:39: “And when He had entered, He said to them, ‘why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’”
Death after death has marred my life and I find myself more and more alone. One can have a fear of some final loneliness. So much fear in the world is fear of this loneliness.
All the people who had loved the young man I once was are gone. For me, a whole world has lived and died. There’s been so many deaths, one after the other. So much is ended. It makes for a lonesome world. Sometimes a procession troops through my mind of all the people I’ve loved and were now dead. There are those who can never be replaced. With them gone, the world seems strangely empty. I thought them immortal. There are times when I catch myself looking for some of them, even expecting to see them. Sometimes I do feel a special sense of their presence in my life.
A number of times I was with a dying loved one. I learned that all of us take with us the knowledge of having loved and having been loved. Research has proven that the five last things which people most want or need at the end of their lives are:
• Granting forgiveness
• Seeking forgiveness
• Expressing gratitude
• Demonstrating love
• Saying good-bye
My Aunt Mae died without a sound, as if to spare her visitors any further trouble. She died softly and quietly. She raised her eyes to heaven, smiled with an expression of mingled happiness, surprise, and delight, and expired.
The loss that marked my life more than anything was the death of my wife, Marcy. It was as if she were going away from me and I could not hold her back. It was as if she were bidding me farewell. I’m convinced that dead she watches over my life.
I’ve often asked God to allow my dead wife to come for me on my deathbed. I often think of old men struggling on alone, experiencing the weariness of survival. Their body has become a burden and a chore for them. It feels as if their body has betrayed and confined them.
As Saint Therese of Lisieux said: “Dying is the last thing I’ll have a chance to do well.” I hope I won’t have left behind any unsaid apologies and unstated affections. The way I would like it to be would be would be no doctors, no hospitals, no sickness and shame, just a sudden step across the line. I would like to end my life giving as little fuss as possible.
There is a Jewish Midrash that says that when a fig is gathered at the proper time it is good. The owner of the fig tree knows when their fruit is ripe for plucking, and he plucks it. It is the same way with dying. God knows when the time of the righteousness has come. As Julian of Norwich said: “His wisdom and love do not allow the end to come until the best time.” I’d like to die in harness, peacefully and composed. There’s an anguish that troubles me at the thought that some day I won’t “be here.” We are all destined to have someone say of us one day, “He’s gone.”
You know, I can still vividly remember my 8th grade classmates. They are not nameless. They are known. I feel they were mine, and shall ever be. An ancient Aztec Indian prayer states that all is on loan; we are only on loan to each other for a short time.
In John 11:23-25 Jesus makes the promise that anyone bereaved of a loved one wants to hear Jesus say to him/her: “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even if they die, will live.”
As I grow older I grow more inclined to see death as the gateway into life, the end of the journey, and the arrival home. The time will come for me to weigh anchor for the final journey. I believe the promise that our death will reunite us with those loved ones who have died, that we will once again see their faces and hear their voices. St. Therese of Lisieux wrote of her parents meeting each other and their dead children in heaven.
There’s that reunion I imagine for me, a gathering of loved ones that awaits me. Sometimes I picture all the people I loved and lost marching toward me from their graves.
I’m disinclined to exit. But I surrender to the mystery of God’s love and mercy.
“One short sleep past and we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; death thou shalt die” (John Donne).
“All life death does end, and each day dies with sleep now. It is all death life does end, and each day lives forever” Enough! The Resurrection.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
There’s one more quote I very much like:
Because I could not stop for death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held just ourselves And immortality.
We slowly drove,
he knew no haste,
And I had put away my leisure too,
For his civility (Emily Dickinson).
