Finding The Right Words of Comfort

What does one say to distraught and grieving parents who have just buried their young child?

. Truthfully there isn’t much we can say that will help. We can express our sorrow and sympathy. We can offer words of care and concern and of course love. We can tell the parents that we shall pray for them. But for most of us the truth is that we don’t know what to say.

I stood a short distance from the family as mourners came to offer their condolences after the burial. And I watched and listened as people so desperately tried to convey their compassion over the tragic loss this young couple have just experienced.

Some fumbled with words then simply broke into tears. Others offered sentiments that some might consider to be inane or even cruel. ‘You’re both young, you’ll have more children,’ one woman offered. The couple were too lost in their grief to even comprehend what the woman had said.

Perhaps it’s because we don’t know what to say that we sometimes say the wrong things. In our distress with another person’s suffering we often feel that we must offer words that will somehow help move the grieving individuals along.

Personally, I feel there is much more of a spiritual connection and sentiment in the power of a silent embrace. No words are necessary to convey sharing the human emotion of pain and sorrow and loss. Especially when we all accept that there are no answers. And so we weep at what has happened. And so too - God weeps with us.

One elderly gentleman suggested that the child’s death was God’s will. I disagree. The God we worship, our God who watches over us, doesn’t will the death of children, or the pain of their parents. Many, many things that happen in this world are not the will of God. That is part of the price of the freedom we have been given by God.

I watched the couple stand in numb silence as an aunt told them that God wanted their son in Heaven with Him. While I am confident God has welcomed him into His kingdom, I am certain God did not want this child to die right now so that He could have him there.

Others continued to offer the same thought; that they were young and they could have more children. This may be true, but other children will never replace this little life. He was his own person. The empty place his death has left in their hearts will never be filled simply because they have another child. Nor should it be. Every child is unique and precious. I realise that people say such things with a desire to comfort the bereaved. They desperately long to find some way to help. May God Bless them for it.

But know that we are faced with a mystery - the mystery of life, and of death, in which there are no easy answers.

And for the grieving parents who may feel that no one will ever understand their pain?...

God understands. He has a son who died also.

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Bedside Prayer for Death of a Child

Words of Comfort for The Dying

What NOT to Say to Someone Dying

A Child's Death

A Childs Funeral

A Night Vigil For The Dying

I'm Only Dying!

Child Suffering

When Friends and Family Are Needed Most

Exploited Children

Could You Help Save a Child?

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Words of Comfort For the Dying

What do you say to someone who is dying? What words of comfort for the dying can you offer? And especially, how do we offer prayers for the dying?

A parent of friends of mine is currently in our local hospice. It’s sad to see that his deterioration has come so rapidly and particularly in that he has so clearly been fighting for survival. On Saturday, he was unconscious and it was thought that he would soon pass. But on Sunday morning, he was chatting with his wife and hospice staff. This is not unusual.

It’s a common occurrence to see people in the final hours of their lives, moving between a peaceful calm and an anxious state. There is clearly a struggle in their spirit to live. And it’s a fact that the strength of that spirit is undeniably tied to their struggle to remain on this earthly plain. Even though their physical bodies are failing and damaged beyond our ability to repair, the powerful spirit within that individual – that deep instinct to protect our human shell, fights to accept any kind of quality of life that is offered them.

Death is that moment of passing that comes as the spirit acknowledges that these mortal remains are no longer able to sustain its presence. And it is okay to acknowledge this, to accept it as yet another part of our journey. In fact, this is where the presence of family, friends and carers can often help most, with their words of comfort and prayers. The dying will come to accept the new journey that their spirit needs to take.

If you’re a family member, speak of the happy times you’ve shared together, the celebrations you’ve had, the joys you’ve experienced together and never forget to share how much you love them. Acknowledge that this is just an interval in time and that you will all be together again soon.

If you’ve had a spirited relationship with the person who’s dying, acknowledge that you’ve had your ‘ups and downs,’ but reaffirm the power of that love and ask them to forgive any transgression there may have been. Please, do not use this time to be accusatory or stating what your wishes may have been. This time is long past and by your presence and giving of yourself; you are providing the greatest blessing you could ever imagine – for both of you.

One of the greatest gifts you can provide, whether you’re a family member, friend, or professional carer is the gift of touch. Even when words can no longer be spoken, the gift of touch is a potent form of spiritual communication. I often rub the hands or feet of someone who is in transition. There are times when I stroke their hair. These gentle acts are no different than the loving embrace we receive as we come into this world.

And of course, there’s the power of prayer. Never underestimate the strength of that communication. As you offer your supplications, not only does God hear, but the living spiritual being you’re praying for hears as well. Acknowledging that it’s okay to let go, that there is life beyond is a form of blessing. And indeed, you too will be blessed.

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Heavenly Father

You have given us so much. Thank You for the gift of life, for all the treasures we received, through the wealth of those who’ve loved us and those whom we’ve loved.

This body You have given is frail and damaged. And now we ask You to grant us peace, as we begin our next journey, to a new life, free of pain and suffering. Ease the sorrow of those we leave behind, knowing that we will always live on in their heart.

Take my hand and lead me now, until that time when we shall meet again, on that day where there is no sunset and no dawn. Amen

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What Not to Say to Someone Dying

When it's Okay to Let Go

I'm Only Dying!

It's Life Jim, but Not as We Know It!

What's a Good Death?

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A Child's Funeral

Tomorrow at eleven I shall celebrate the funeral of a three-year-old boy. It will be difficult for me, but a thousand times more difficult, of course, for the young parents, the grandparents and the rest of the family. Here was a young life full of promise, welcomed with love and longing by his family and it all ended almost before it had begun.

The service for the funeral of a child is desperately moving; though for the family, the liturgy of faith and hope will not be easy either to say or to hear. Yet I know that the family will survive; in one sense life will go on and perhaps in time, they will even be strengthened by this dark and awful experience.

All around us, as we share the service together and lay the tiny coffin deep within the earth, the priorities of our world will continue. People will go about their daily work, their shopping, and their gardens. Newspapers will lay on the kitchen table, with headlines about war in Syria, President Obama, or the Royal Family.

For us, at the graveside, all the world will come to a standstill, just for a minute or two-there will be nothing more important than a small box and a few handfuls of soil. It seems like a parable on the subject of perspective.

Our perspectives for those fleeting moments will be unreservedly clear. Nothing else will matter. And then, of course, we shall return to what we call a ‘normal’ life, where perspectives are seldom clear and often hopelessly distorted. Before we know it, perhaps, the great and small issues of our days will take over, and it will be the price of petrol, or the continued rising deaths in Iraq that disturb our peace of mind.

Jesus accused some of the religious teachers of His time of ‘straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel’ - a very vivid way of saying that they’d got their priorities hopelessly out of perspective. Yet who, in our media-saturated world, really knows which are the gnats and which are the camels? What really matters, and what is of minimal and passing importance in the light of eternity?

In our moments of clear perspective, when our priorities are obvious, the values that tend to emerge are love, commitment, kindness, courage and hope. It’s when the tawdry agenda of every day takes over; celebrity, sport, news and gossip (which are often much the same thing), that we cater to the partisan, to cruel and unthinking words, and harsh, judgemental opinions.

It seems a pity that it takes very often a tragedy or crisis to help us see things so clearly.

As I stand by a child’s grave tomorrow morning I hope I won’t be too quick to forget what I learn there.

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A Child's Death

Words of Comfort for the Dying

Having a Good Death

Don't Worry, I'm only dying

Etiquette For Visitors to Britain

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Falling In Love At Clapham Junction

Yesterday I celebrated the passing of a life. Of course, I do this often. But there are some funerals that remain with you; they capture part of your heart and refuse to let you go.

Funerals are a constant in my village. We have an enormous senior community. According to those people who stay locked away in windowless rooms, fiddling with numbers and such throughout the day and night, the average age mean where I live is … well … more or less … deceased! So to say I celebrated a funeral today is a bit like saying I brushed my teeth this morning. 

 

Last November I celebrated the life of the gentleman's wife. Sixty-seven years they had been married! Look at the divorce rate today. It’s an actuarial fact that the average marriage will not survive more than 7.5 years now.

But this couple were in it for the long run. Till death do us part. Back then, people took their words before God seriously. But just as with so many other things today, solemn words are little more than just words. And when I hear people proudly tell me of all those years they lived together, I feel a burst of wholehearted admiration for them.

The day I went to their home to discuss his wife’s funeral, I couldn’t wrestle away the thought of how lonely he was going to be. Elderly British men have it particularly rough when their wives die. Not only are there all the understandable emotional sorrows, but most of them have never once set foot in a kitchen.

 

He was severely deaf, and his hearing aid seemed to be more of a nuisance than helpful. And sadly, he was at that awful beginning of ageing dementia, where everyone but you is becoming concerned about your welfare.

I was so grateful that his daughter was there. She was making all the arrangements for her mother. She kindly shared with me many personal private thoughts about her parents. I wanted to speak with her father as well, but without exaggerating, I literally had to forcefully yell in order for him to hear me. And even then I wasn’t assured that he had fully comprehended what I said.

But he did say something that stuck with me for all this time. He told me of when he and his wife first met and where they would rendezvous-beneath the large clock at Clapham Junction Railway Station. He really wasn’t able to share much more with me. But it was this thought that remained at the forefront of his mind.

There’s an old British maxim that says when you die and go to Heaven, you will have to change at Clapham Junction. And as I left them that day, I couldn’t escape the image of this young couple; she was 17, he was 18, meeting time after time at Clapham Junction, Europe's busiest railway station.

If you’re in your late seventy’s and reading this, you will easily be able to recreate the image. If you’re fifty and below, it would be difficult. You have to remember that during that time, the station would have been shrouded in a miasma of smog and smoke. The endless arrival and departure of trains, not the ‘quiet’ ones we enjoy today, but the powerful steel horses, snorting like an enraged team of black stallions, and belching bellowing black plumes of soot and ash into the air, amid the ever-oppressive drone of the tannoy, calling out such exotic destinations as Crossbush, Liphook and Brighton ("well, Hove actually.") 

 

It all creates such a powerful juxtaposition-young lovers, oblivious to the raging world around them. And raging it indeed was. The great depression would have been in full swing when they first met. And Europe was in turmoil. Our government was grasping at any able-bodied young male, preparing to drag them into the dark swirling caldron of war.

Each passing of a life leaves a passport to the future in its children and grandchildren. And it is those sweet memories that reside within us and embrace us years later when we begin to prepare for our own next journey. But it’s a powerful force when someone’s passing gently touches another.

Yesterday, when we committed your soul to God’s care, you gave me something that I will draw upon from time to time, whenever I need to momentarily escape from the belching, snorting, steel horses around me.

I’ll think of those two young lovers, back together again, meeting beneath the clock at Clapham Junction.

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Words of Comfort for the Dying

Remember Me

A Childs Funeral

Welcome Home

I'm Only Dying!

Finding Words Of Comfort

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Uncle David

I'm in the cemetery a lot. If it isn't to bury someone it's to visit people I already have. Uncle David is there too. I miss him. Uncle David was the epitome of life in another era. Everything was either black or white, there was little room for much else.

Uncle David spent the majority of his life at the same address. When his parents died he purchased his sister's shares in the house. This way there wouldn't be the need for any changes for him. And when he and Auntie Mary were married they continued on in the same house as well.

There's something comforting about continuity. I remember so vividly when I'd step off a flight at Heathrow and head towards their home. All the hustle and bustle of having travelled many thousands of miles, of having dealt with different cultures, customs, ideologies, smells, and foods; all would quickly drain from my mind as I travelled down the road to their home.

And I'd enter another world. Their world. Nothing changed, nothing new. Two apples, one banana, and an orange would be in the basket on top the small bookshelf in the sitting room. Kitchen cabinets emptied and vigorously scrubbed each week, everything returned to its appropriate place. Always.

And no matter where I had been, no matter what I had done, no matter how exotic the destination, the conversations would be the same. First, weather. After all we are British.

Next, how did I travel? Not the flight mind you, but the road to get to the house. Was it the M4 to the M25 and then the B22whatever, or was it the A123oh my goodness connecting to the Z1 Dead Head B Road and on to the circular counter-clockwise roundabout jugular dual carriageway? And no matter what I'd say, I had to repeat it. Uncle David was so deaf. Bless him.

This walking talking comprehensive map storage facility for the AA was deaf as a door knob. It was a constant irritant for Auntie Mary. But she adored him and when you adore someone you accept these small inconsequential matters, don't you?

I find myself chatting to Uncle David a lot. I know he can't hear me. Gawd knows he can't hear me! But chat away I do. And my conversations are still today just as simple as they always were.

But now I find that I add a few words that I never used when he was alive. I miss you. I love you. I wish you were here.

But then, after all, we are British.

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Falling In Love At Clapham Junction

So What's a Good Death?

When We're Needed Most

Remember Me

Welcome Home Emily

Having A Good Death

It has been a challenging week. I’ve seen what I’d say was humanity at its sweetest and its’ most bitter during this week.

I sat with a gentleman who slipped away, never regaining consciousness from a massive stroke. He was only fifty-six years old and according to his older sister, the man had a penchant for the 'good life,' primarily consisting of copious quantities of alcohol and grease infused foods. (Well, it was his interpretation of the ‘good life’).

I’ve introduced the nearly dead to the recently deceased with the poor child who is addicted to heroin. The struggle she faces could be beyond the comprehension of many.

And I collected the ashes of my friend Sarah. She’s here with me right now, as I write, waiting patiently for me to strew the final remains of her earthly life in the same spot as her beloved husband. It will not be a task to do so; it will be an honour.

Shortly after I returned home last night, I was contacted by a family to inform me of the death of an elderly gentleman. He had died that evening, in his bed, at home. This morning I mentioned to my children during breakfast that I would be gone for a few hours, whilst I made a pastoral visit to the family. My son said to me ‘well Dad, at least this was a ‘good death’ instead of a bad one.’

So what then is a good death? In the past that was not a difficult question, because the answer was given us - by the church, into which most of us were baptised, and whose principal doctrines we learned, if not at home, or at church, then at school.

A good death was above all prepared for. In our final days this would involve making our peace with God and neighbour. But long before that, it would involve living out our lives in the knowledge that this life was in part, a preparation for the life of the world to come.

That gave us a certain ‘orientation,’ so that when we did come to the end of our lives, whether it be short or long, they would not seem pointless and we could look back with a contented heart.

But in these more secular times many have taken death, so to speak, into their own hands. Clergy are no longer needed or desired. And in some instances, considering some of my fellow clergy, I might take the very same stance! People are finding their own ways of bringing meaning to the loss of a loved one.

So, what is a good death now? When I asked my son to share his idea of a ‘good death’ he simply said that it was to go to bed and not wake up. In other words, to slip from this world into oblivion, or wherever, without knowing - to die unprepared, the very opposite of the ‘traditional’ church-inspired understanding.

In another age, when life expectancy was short, when illness struck suddenly and carried us off quickly, that might have been the expectation and hope of many. But if the countless octogenarians I visit each week in our coastal care homes are any indicator, most of us can now expect to live well past the point where we can’t physically do much more than move from a bed to a chair and back to bed each day. We shall have years of reflecting upon our mortality before we succumb to some degenerative disease and know that our final days are upon us.

So what is a good death?

The starting point for us all, believers and non-believers, is the same: we will die. The practical things we can all do: making our peace, setting our affairs in order, giving consideration to family and friends and the needs they may have. They all become acts of kindness towards others.

But, as a priest, I know that this is the easy part. The difficult bit is finding that final peace of mind and calmness of spirit that comes from being able to reconcile all that has gone before - successes and frustrations – warm memories and sad ones as well – all coming to the inevitable reality that it is going to end.

The ‘believer’ achieves that reconciliation when he says; ‘Lord into your hands I commend my spirit.’ It’s that reaffirmation that this is only a passing of time and that there is a new life ahead. To me, that remains a good death.

In fact, I can’t imagine coming across a better.


Írásos Bill atya gyűjteményéből. Imádkozunk az egészsége. LR

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I'm Taken To Task For My Actions

When We're Needed Most

I'm Only Dying!

Falling In Love At Clapham Junction

A Childs Funeral

BereavementDeathChildDeath

When A Crisis Must Take A Backseat To Need

My heart is breaking for the children in Moldova. We have such a crisis on our hands at present.

During my visit over the Orthodox Easter, I told Vasile Batcu that the children would need to be out of Aschiuta Home and in Summer Camp by the 10th of June, in anticipation of the arrival of volunteers, as well as the funds to renovate the children’s bathrooms.

If you read one of my other blogs, ‘Anglicans,’ you will be aware that not only did the volunteers not arrive, the funds to pay for the supplies and local labour failed to materialise as well. We did receive two contributions: one in the amount of USD$850.00 and a subsequent contribution of USD$250.00. There were never any volunteers organised, there was no fund drive at one of the churches. It was an awful situation that affected so many and I only had myself to blame for not following the most basic of due diligence.

With a budgeted cost of circa GBP£4000, or USD$6900.00, we are left in an absolutely dreadful situation. The bathrooms are simply unusable. And with up to thirty-four children in the home at any given time, plus house parents and volunteers, even the absence of one of the two toilets can create a crisis.

I received a joint telephone call this morning from Vasile and Inna, asking me to advise them what we should do. My best guess was that the funds we’ve received will have to go towards some of the camp costs, as the children are already there and utilising the services. However, it doesn’t address what we’re going to do when they return.

It has been an emotionally challenging week. The sadness of the child’s funeral at the end of the week overwhelmed many. Plus my friend Sarah slowly moves in and out of a coma now. I still talk to Sarah, as I know she can hear me, but the lines on her face deepen as the cancer spreads.

As I was leaving the ward yesterday another patient called out to me. Her name is Mrs Pearce. I had not met her before. She was wild eyed and frightened. I had heard her, as I sat with Sarah, calling out to no one in particular, that she wanted to go ‘home.’ Although the ward they're in is not generally for the terminally ill, it just happens that Mrs Pearce is suffering from cancer as well.

Mrs Pearce asked me to stay with her for a bit. She said she was afraid and she wanted to go home. I held her hand and stroked her forehead. I asked simple questions: how many children did she have, grandchildren, where she was born – all truthfully intended to help her mentally escape from her present surroundings.

I promised that I’d bring her some fresh strawberries tomorrow. I’ll need to purée them as she's unable to manage any solids. But I suspect she still may have difficulty in eating them.

It had been my hope that the children and I would escape for our own ‘Star Picnic,’ on Saturday night. I needed a bit of a diversion from the challenges of the week. It wasn’t to be.

As I stood at the nursing station, disinfecting my hands with Isopropyl, one of the ward nurses came up to me. I’ve known her for several years. In fact, I celebrated her mother’s funeral sometime last year. ‘Father, would you mind if we had a word?’ she asked with a sense of urgency in her eyes. ‘Of course,’ I smiled.

As I followed her into the small office I thought she was going to tell me that Sarah would most likely not live more than a day or two. I had already thought this myself, so my heart was prepared and I had imagined how nice it would be for her finally to be free of her pain.

The nurse sat down with me. I glanced over at her desk and saw the photos of her two children; Laura is three and Michael is five. ‘Father, I thought you should know, I’ve just been diagnosed with bowel cancer.’ She said it matter-of-factly.

‘I’m so saddened to hear this,’ I began. ‘Let’s take a break now and talk about it.’
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Children In Crisis Exploited Children Death Of A Child

Anglican Prayers Falling In Love At Clapham Junction