How will we ever work through the human context with love, peace, creativity, truth and the sense of fulfillment for life meaning? Philosophers do not agree, nor do the varieties of academicians, religionists, cultures, common sense citizens, business and physical gurus – and so the list lengthens. The tensions are not only between this and that group, but found within ranges of differences within a context. Persons find it difficult to live within the context of their own beliefs, even passions. How may their neighbors fare in what they are told to do when even social heroes mess things up? For some years there seemed to be a break-through to teach the public how to reduce grief by accepting the Kubler-Ross order from life through grief to death – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance of death. During her closing days she appeared to anger and stress – while chain-smoking. (We can’t be sure, but we read her situation as best we can in her known experience.) Freud noted that grief was work, so we needed to work at it. Studies of horrendous tragedies like that of the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City suggest that resilience is the norm. News stories focused on the grief and debilitation. Certainly there were both expressions, and those with differentials of orientations. In the end the people most involved with other tragedies, coped rather well, some magnificently. A number argued that they had difficulty escaping from assumptions suggested by helpers who tried to relate and guide them through the trauma and the grief. For some victims, helpers worsened their tragedies. Many persons are resilient even in tragedy.
I have been friend and counselor to many persons who experienced various and extensive sorrows, losses, disappointments, death, maiming, even loss of fortune, reputation, status – and the like. The vast majority were resilient, found their balance, sometimes finding the loss to be beneficial, and by their improved orientation found blessing for themselves and others. I loved my mother deeply, and she would take me into her confidence through the decades. After her ninetieth birthday, when the family gathered to honor her, she began rather quickly to decline. Why does not the Lord take me, I am ready to go? We even joked about it. I replied, Dear Mother, I would like to have you here, because when you go, I am next in line. When she died six years later, I was nearly 2000 miles away driving toward home when my elder son called and announced that she had left this mortal coil. I wish I could have been there and held her hand in the transition. She could barely see light in the darkness, and nearly deaf to human voices, but she was a brave and hearty woman, friend and mother. She had a way of accepting whatever occurred because there was God to guide, and persons to encourage, and those who loved her and would care for her when she could no longer take care of them. That was the way of it. The matter was held until I arrived home and took over the care of her affairs and memorial. (Psalm 35:14 – I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.) When my wife died my sorrows elevated. In the privacy of the family I took hold of one of my grandsons, leaned on him and wept deeply for some minutes. Soon after the family was in warm fellowship with me, laughing about the memories of her, and a life well lived even if not in the drama of modern society that finds values in what is lost rather than in what is gained. We lament, not grieve, our losses but we remember, as Jesus noted, that a life was given and has gone yonder. The mother suffering in childbirth rises to cheer that a life has been born into the world, perhaps to the safety of God. (John 16:21)
On hearing of the death of his dearest friend, Jonathan, David lamented. The lament, a word often appearing in Scripture and providing a title for one of the books of the Old Testament honors the meaning of the person(s) to the lamenter. On this occasion, David offered words that have become iconic in literature: How have the mighty fallen! In the lament we search for something pointing to meaning. In grief the point is in my own suffering and meaning of life and death. For a few there is no recovery. For many there is understanding of life so to lament any failure and point to the life that can be lived. The accent is on life. The Christian does not grieve as do others. We believe God has provided transition for us. Life follows, if all is well between us and the comforter God of mercy, life and hope. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020