Bereavement

Think for a moment of one of your loved ones who has passed away, and recall the grief you experienced at the funeral. Give yourself a numerical score for your grief at that time, on a scale from one to one hundred. Now think about the death of a victim of terrorism that you read about recently, and give yourself a “grief score” for that tragic event. How do your two scores compare? Why is there such a divergence in the grief experienced in the first as compared to the grief experienced when reading about the latter?

The answer, of course is the degree of love for the deceased--in one case, deep and intense, and in the other, distant and almost casual. The greater the love, the greater the loss experienced when the beloved is taken away. Whether the loss is that of a pet or that of a diamond ring, the pain of the loss or deprivation is always proportionate to the strength of one’s affection toward the person or attachment to the object. Jesus wept at the death of his good friend Lazarus (“Behold how he loved him!” (Jn 11:36), even though he was dead for only four days before his miraculous resurrection.

Now take another test. How intense is your grief score today--perhaps years after the loss of a dear one--compared to your grief at the funeral? There may be surging waves of heartache periodically, but overall, we all learn that “time heals all wounds” (for some bereaved persons faster than for others, of course). This is God’s gentle but mysterious anesthetic. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4).

The bereaved soul who “walks with the Lord” in the courage and trust infused by the renowned Psalm 23 walks with him through the valley of the shadow of death; there’s no evil in a shadow--no venom in a serpent’s shadow and no cutting edge in the shadow of a sword. The Good Shepherd who “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Is 53:4) leads both the dead and the mourning in the valley of the shadow of death. A valley is a fruitful plain; death is spiritually fruitful for the sheep dying in the arms of the Good Shepherd, as well as for the afflicted and lonely sheep bereft of their presence. The living who linger behind trust in his promise: “The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended” (Is 60:19-20, emphasis mine).

Moreover, death is a walk through this valley--a gentle, pleasant walk. Noble Christians take delight in their pleasurable walk into the next world, stepping forward willingly as they take leave of this world, linking arms with the Master in the beautiful healing walk called death. They walk through this valley, never getting lost in it; they trust their great Shepherd to get them safely to the mountain of glories beyond the valley. Trust for any loved one, living or dead, is committing them totally to the Lord, without diminishing a tranquil and worry-free concern for their needs. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shone” (Is 9:2).

Do our beloved dead leave us, or do we leave them? They must somehow feel that we leave them if we don’t paradoxically “rejoice with them as we weep for them.”If we truly love someone, we are happy to know that he or she is happy, even though we are sad in being deprived of his or her immediate loving presence. Yet that’s where trust in God reaches its peak. For those whose trust falters under the grief of bereavement, Paul has a comforting word: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope [trust]”(1 Thes 4:13, emphasis mine).

While condolences from our friends can be very helpful, ultimately only God can sustain us and dissolve our anguish. “This is my comfort in my distress, that your promise gives me life” (Ps 119:50).

This excerpt is from the book Pathways of Trust, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.