Beautiful in Death – Part 1

My brother ‘J’ was a beautiful person. Beautiful in life. And beautiful in death.

I’ve been thinking about how my family is still celebrating ‘J’’s life by making his death beautiful: Finding a way to honour him - even when it is beyond us to make sense of the tragedy of his passing. I think our family has done a pretty good job of giving everyone permission to grieve: feel sad, cry, talk. (And that is a beautiful, precious and important thing to do. Especially when a lot of the time it seems like we’re supposed to ‘suck it up’, ‘move on’ and ‘get on with life’ no matter what the tragedy, at a rapid rate.) They’ve also been good at regularly taking the time to go to his gravesite and place flowers, do some gardening and think about him.

In talking about him and especially in visiting his grave, we are rubbing up against the realness of his death in a very solid way: there is a coffin down there containing his body, and sandy soil on top and a mess of flowers strewn over that, and above, a stone cross. The physical reality of his no longer being here is so strong at the gravesite. And it hurts. But it’s also helpful. It’s helpful in learning to live with his absence. Going to the grave helps us face up to our loss: He is gone. And that is horribly sad. We can’t have any more conversations with him. (That is something I will always miss.) Now we can only have conversations about him. But we need each other to do that.

Even though these conversations can be sad and painful, I am so glad we are not avoiding having them. Contrary to the way western culture in general tries to minimize death and suffering by largely ignoring it, I don’t think it would spare us any pain to try and ‘move on’ quickly from the tragedy of ‘J’’s passing. I think this could lock you out of healing, leaving you isolated in your own private grief. (Not that I have entirely escaped that feeling either. Though I am connected in a corporate experience of losing ‘J’ - as part of a family - there are definitely times when it has been just me and God. Or me holding onto my warm sleeping toddler in her narrow single bed, crying quietly into all that soft wavy hair, and hoping not to wake her. And I guess that’s a personality thing, of wanting to grieve privately, and I’m sure I’m far from alone in needing to feel pain privately at times. But I wouldn’t want that to be the only experience of grief. As well as my family, everyone who knew ‘J’ and friends who know me are all people I can have helpful conversations with.)

More than that though, to avoid the conversations about ‘J’ now that he’s gone, in order to minimise pain, is to waste the short but spectacular life he had, and rob it of its power to point to Jesus. I can say with more confidence than any other family member who has gone before me that ‘J’ is with Christ now. I can say this because he was my own brother and I knew him especially well. As my other brother ‘D’ said in the hospital corridors in those tense last few days of ‘J’’s life,
‘This must be a very special time for him.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said,
‘He could be about to go to heaven.’
And later, ‘This is the first one through to the keeper.’
And I’m sure he was right.

I am grateful to both my parents for being so open in their feelings, even if at times I have felt helpless, stranded between hanging on to my own emotions and not being overwhelmed by theirs. A lot of the time I have simply stood there, longing to be able to be a better comforter, listening to them or giving them a hug and feeling so sorry that the very thing that needed doing I could not do. I could not, can not, bring him back.

Though we grieve imperfectly, it feels much better to share it (at least some of the time) and to try and help each other through it. Together we are learning how to live with ‘J’’s absence, until we meet him again in heaven and will get to serve Jesus together, all our family I pray, perfectly this time. Something to look forward to!