Father Stace nailed it tonight at Epiphany’s Ash Wednesday
service:
“Take advantage of the perspective
that Ash Wednesday has to give us. In
Christ, human destiny is not confined to the grave, but the grave is part of
the journey. For we are dust, and to
dust we shall return.”
Daniel’s death continues to ground me – the fact that he has
already returned to earthly dust is somehow an important reality and reminder
of my status: I too shall do the
same.
Yet dust is actually only part of the journey – we may start
and end our earthly there, and yet our journey somehow continues beyond this
dust – the grave is only part of the journey, a mere portal into the next phase
of living.
Funerals are more
comfortable
Our friend Darnell who also lost his son the same year we
lost Daniel recently asked us how we feel at funerals since Daniel died.
Without thinking long, Carol and I both commented that
funerals are more comfortable for us now than weddings are – funerals feel natural
and remind us of Daniel and our future transition back into an experience of a
living relationship with him.
Weddings, on the other hand, happen to bring up more pain –
the unfulfilled dreams we had for that son, the love he never lived to
experience, a future for him that we will never see come to be.
Since Daniel died, we have been to several funerals but many
more weddings. Funerals are where we
seem to find comfort – weddings are where we struggle with the bittersweet pain
that we carry in our hearts, even as we marvel at the love between the
beautiful young people whose weddings we have witnessed.
Perhaps this makes us odd in this world, but it is seems to
be who we have become.
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