Death

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies, but not everyone lives" (A. Sachs).

Recently, we lost one of our students through death. In the weeks following the tragic incident that led to his ultimate passing, I spent a considerable amount of time with his family. It caused me to think a lot about death and recall some of my own losses and experiences. It's not a subject we tend to approach with comfort or face with ease.

While visiting my student and his family, I noticed that the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit was packed daily with friends and family who were there to offer mutual support. Of course, because of his delicate condition, very few people were allowed into ICU to see him in person. When the family made the agonizing decision to remove him from life support and move him to hospice, there was increased freedom for visitation. People were able to come and go as they pleased, offering support in person or keeping a beside vigil.

But they didn't come.

The throngs that packed the hospital waiting room for a week or more were noticeably absent during the two weeks that followed at the hospice. They could have come. They could have visited. They could have said their goodbye's to their friend. But something wouldn't allow it. When the opportunity came to be close, the proximity to death was too much for some...and they stayed away.

I don't blame them.

I think death is very difficult for us to handle in this culture. All cultures grieve, but some cultures seem to take a more personal, earthy, hands-on approach to that grief and the rituals that surround death and dying.

In this country, people tend to die in isolated hospital rooms under the care of professional providers. Funeral directors remove the body and embalm it to delay decay and then seal it in a casket and vault to preserve it for years. The grave diggers arrive before the burial and then finish the task after the family has left. The casket is beautiful and pricey, and the hair and make up are so professional that we can approach the body for the 30 seconds we have to face it and utter the words "doesn't she look nice?". And then we have a potluck.

I knew quite a different experience in Ireland. The family gathers at the hospital morgue to be with the body before the undertaker removes it and embalms it just enough to keep the air fresh during the wake and funeral but not too long to delay decomposition. When they "bring him home", the body is placed in the dining room or a bedroom for family and friends to gather around, pay their respects, and mutually comfort. Usually, the men of the parish dig the grave before attending the funeral. The body is carried in a primitive coffin of wood on the shoulders of friends and family in and out of the church and to the burial site. After being lowered into the ground in the presence of all gathered, the priest and family take turns shoveling dirt onto the naked coffin resting on the clay. In Ireland, I saw the community embracing the death of their loved ones and neighbors, and they didn't make it pretty.

In primitive cultures, they would wash the body of their brother, sister, father, and mother before wrapping it and burying it in a shallow grave. They nursed their sick, wounded, and aged. They had to deal with the smell of death and bore with each other their naked grief. It was real. It was messy. It was life.

For many of us, the end care of our loved ones is no longer our responsibility, and we are seldom afforded the opportunity of walking with our loved ones into the valley of the shadow of death. Although the pain of my student's family was intense, I believe those weeks that they had at the bedside of their son was a precious gift. They sat with him, held his hand, spoke to him, and did not leave his side. They were with him when he entered this life, and they were with him the moment he entered the next.

I've spent a bit of time comparing and contrasting the death of my own parents. My father died alone, suddenly, in a laundromat as he waited for his clothes to finish washing. He died in a seated position, and for almost a half hour, people just thought he was sleeping. My mother, on the other hand, suffered with all sorts of health issues that left my brother and I with an awful and terrible decision that we had to make regarding how she was going to die. So we made the difficult decisions and spent the next week and a half at her bedside until the inevitable happened. She was surrounded by her boys, and I felt she was at peace. Those were precious moments spent by her bedside, and I know they contain memories I will not easily forget.

None of us get to choose our exit, but if I could, I'd prefer to be surrounded by those who loved me in life and who love me in death. I believe in the importance of sharing life with others, and there are few times as precious and foundationally real as those moments our loved ones make their transition from this life to the next.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).