A letter and booklet arrived in the mail this morning from the little Midwestern town where I grew up, the village mortician reminding me that a year has passed since my mother’s death.
I did not need reminding.
This mailing did not upset me – quite the opposite. The mortician had already buried my brother and cremated my mom and dad – I am now the only remaining remnant of our small brood, up next for the treatment. One of the benefits of growing up in a small town is that everyone knows everyone quite well. And that may be one of its limitations.
But this particular funeral director is a jovial, authentic person who’s always treated our family and friends with dignity, and we’re lucky to have him. His booklet Hope and Renewal explains the grieving process and how to combat negative feelings.
“Sometimes well-meaning people will encourage you to ‘get over it.’ Please ignore them. Even though you have come a long way toward healing, the road you are on is your own. Friends can walk along with you for a while, but they can’t make the trip for you. It will take as long as it takes.”
Tips are offered on how to move forward, how to reach out to others who also grieve for your loved one, and letting the tears flow as they may.
“Focus on rebuilding your life, taking time to re-organize and re-energize,” it instructs. “The point isn’t to replace your loved one, but to find new people or activities for the feelings you used to give your loved one.”
We cannot hide from memories, good or bad.
My greatest hurdle this year was dealing with mistakes I made during mom’s passing. Overall, things went well. After hearing the bombshell diagnosis – lung cancer has spread to bones and brain – she languished in a nearby nursing home for three weeks under COVID restrictions.
But we were able to bring her home for the last month of her life and she was comfortable with hospice, whom she’d praised and admired during my dad’s death in the fall of 2015 to colon cancer. We even had a few laughs with the hospice staff. One middle-aged female was British, and I asked her if she had any trouble acclimating.
“One lady asked if I could speak American,” she said. “I didn’t say anything, but I considered ramming a white-hot poker into my ear and dashing out half of my brains to accomplish the task,” she giggled.
Mom passed with my wife and I by her side – along with her minister – who visited nearly every day and became a godsend when we needed to draw on his spiritual strength.
But my mom and I are much alike – born to debate – and we could have been kinder to each other over that last month. Some of the old bugaboos flared up at the end, aggravating us both.
We never let them fester and we loved each other as much as a mother-son can love – but the fact that they existed at all tormented me over the months until I finally sat down this morning almost a year later and wrote her a letter, leaving all the regrets on the page before I lit the paper and sent it to heaven via black smoke signals.
An hour later the mail arrived with her answer in the mortician’s booklet.
“Your memories of your loved one will be both happy and painful. If some of your memories are still very painful, let yourself experience them anyway. You can’t run away from them. The best way to take the sting out is to recognize, accept, and express them. At the same time, try to tap into happier memories. Remember birthdays, holidays, vacations, celebrations, and milestones. Sharing memories can multiply the healing. The more you share happy memories, the more power they will have, and the more healing you will gain.”
Here’s the way the Big Guy works:
My wife and I “just happen” to be reading Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing about Grace? for a devotional. This is what he had to say about the lack of grace this very morning:
“Ungrace does its work quietly and lethally, like a poisonous, undetectable gas. A father dies unforgiven. A mother who once carried a child in her own body does not speak to that child for half its life. The toxin steals on, from generation to generation.” -- Philip Yancey
You’ve seen ungrace in your friends’ families, maybe even your own, and you know the accompanying pain.
But if you believe in a Higher Power, you may also be familiar with grace.
“The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace. I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.” -- Philip Yancey
Thank you, Mom, for reading my letter and sending your answer within an hour. I know you believed in grace, too, and are experiencing it now. Forever.
“One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as ‘those evil people’ or ‘those poor people who need our help.’ Nor must we search for signs of ‘love worthiness.’ Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.” -- Philip Yancey
As the only remaining family member, I can honestly say that going forward with life on earth is impossible without grace.
At least for me, it isn’t.
Please don’t wait until a graceful mortician mails that idea home to you.