In N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, he says, “…what you think about death, and life beyond it, is the key to thinking seriously about everything else – and, indeed, that it provides one of the main reasons for thinking seriously about anything at all.”
I am conflicted about what to think about death. On the one hand I am quite detached from it. I have not died, nor have I ever been given a prognosis that has forced me to face my own mortality. How can I relate? But there must be something to a bond of marriage. The oneness of it. The soul connection. When Neil died my world changed in no little way. It compelled me to face the reality of death.
The words “death”, “died”, and “dead” are frequently used around my house. They have become commonplace. I do this intentionally so that my daughter is comfortable talking about death. Perhaps a little of my intention is to slight death itself. There is something in our lives it does not have power over. Words. Although words can carry a weight.
It is not uncommon to hear my daughter randomly exclaim, “Daddy died!” This statement may seem startling or sad to some. I’m sure it was for me at first. Then it became so common that my view of it changed. It now represents the gateway to open conversation.
However the effects of this statement on others jolts me more than her statement itself. I think Alexis has realized she can use this term as her secret weapon. It tends to generate a reaction. It comes down like a hammer on unsuspecting individuals. The lady in the grocery store, her childcare provider, the man at the coffee shop.
Another’s shocked reaction is what causes me to step back. It reminds me to think about the weight of this word.
Without the use of the word “death” in our house the topic would be silenced. Our inner thoughts bottled up, and my daughter’s curiosity about what happened to her father would go unexplored, unsatisfied. But death is also much more than that. It is the robber of life. It is the finality that stopped breath from filling my husband’s lungs. Death means I will never see him again. Never.
When I think about this, the finality of death, the cruelty it leaves behind, and in my case the abruptness of it, I find myself screaming in my head. I have gone on for days like that. There are no words. Just screaming. It is a loss of control. Death is a circumstance that can never be changed. It is the great parting of ways.
I aimed the camcorder at Alexis and pressed record. She kicked off her spotlight with the statement, “Daddy died because my hands are dirty.” Later on in that same recording she commented, “When we have an umbrella then we die.” She finished by addressing me and saying, “You died, and I died.”
Our conversations are often random. As the thoughts in her head make their way out our forum on death is sporadic. The point, however, is that we are talking. Sometimes I wonder where her concepts come from, but then I have to ask myself the same about my own. These are not only conversations I want to have. These are conversations I am compelled to have as death is part of the reality I too will one day face.
Then I ask her “What do you think happens when we die?” I was curious what response she’d come up with. Instead she redirected the question back at me.
“You have to tell me.” she quipped.
Whoops. I pause. Long silence. … …. ….
Facing my husband’s death I realize I don’t know. Do we go to “heaven”? Do we fall “asleep” until a resurrection? Do we wait in an in-between Paradise until the new earth is created? Will we stand in judgment before the Creator of all?
I realize I will not find the answers to all my questions. To peel apart all truth from fiction is beyond my capacity. What remains important to me is that I try. To wrestle and refine. I want to add to my understanding, because my ignorance unsettles me.
Neil died at only 33 years old. That is the age I am now. If I were to die this year I wonder how I would face my own death. I have a feeling I would fight it every step of the way. I imagine the taste of death would be bitter, not in the thought of the here-after, but the thought of the left-behind. But this is where thinking of death changes my living.
Tim McGraw sings a song called “Live like you were dying.“ The chorus sings, “I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying…I hope some day you get the chance to live like you were dying.” The second verse sings, “I finally read the good book and I took a good long hard look at what I’d do if I could do it all again.”
I don’t know all the answers for what will happen after this life, but I am convinced we only get one take. And when death crept up on the door step of our house it made me pay attention.
Death happens to everyone. It just hasn’t happened to everyone yet. I do not know when death will come calling again, or for whom the bell will toll. Until then I will pretend that I am 90 looking back on my life, and live the kind of story I want to look back on and read. I will live, and love, and study the good book whose Author I hope to one day meet.
