Night and Day

“In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening, love can hear the rustle of a wing.” ~Robert Ingersoll, Civil War veteran, American political leader and orator (1833-1899)


It was 6:55 AM Wednesday morning and Monsignor went flying past my open office door. “Tell me the days are worth the nights Jim” he called out over his shoulder, never breaking stride. “The days are worth the nights Monsignor,” I shouted back. He continued on. Our Parish Administrator’s wife had died tragically only three days earlier and we were all pondering that same question. Are the days worth the nights?

For more than a year prior to her death, every time I left my mother’s bedside, I reminded myself it might be the last time I saw her alive. For this reason, I tried to make each departure count by telling her repeatedly I loved her. When someone is in hospice care we are super-attentive to the proximity of death. However, if we left the house on a beautiful, sunny, Sunday afternoon to run a few errands, we would not expect to be called to the local emergency room, only to discover our spouse had died.

So often when we experience the death of another, particularly those who are closest to us, we envision enveloping darkness…the end of life. Death, however, can produce a response, an innate light, so kinetic as to be illuminating.

After a death, the first thing we often experience is raw, unbridled emotion. The insulation of decorum, image and civility are stripped from the wires of our being. The raw grief, despair and hopelessness rises in us unfiltered and unfettered often coming unexpectedly in fits and sparks. In a way we are being reconnected with the purest state of our emotions.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is purgative, purifying. It allows us the opportunity to “vent” our grief, relieving the emotional pressure of trying to hold it in. “The grief that does not speak whispers to the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break” wrote William Shakespeare. We may wish, at times like these, to try to keep up appearances. But this is not a time when appearances should be expected, requiring energy which we do not possess. This is undoubtedly why certain cultures openly wail at funerals and wakes. It is a way of “getting it all out.” Dumping the grief as it were.

Experiencing the death of another also provides us with perspective, clarity. What a friend of mine calls a “reality check”. The petty, superficial and unnecessary blanch when illuminated by the harsh reality of death. Petty grievances or disagreements which previously irked or disturbed us simply fall away. We see them for what they were and wonder why we held onto them so tightly in the first place.

Possessions, power and prestige cannot protect us from the grave, nor insulate us from our grief. Real grief is an opportunity to reconnect with who we are, what we should be and what is really important to us. There is a reason why so many return to the church after the death of a loved one. What they thought was important in their lives pales in the face of death.

As stewards we acknowledge everything is a gift. Within the illuminating night, which is death, we recognize the extent to which the deceased was a gift to us. As mourners come together there is a growing recognition of the extent to which the deceased was a gift to all. This is why communal events, times when mourners can come together to share (such as wakes, vigils or Bethany meals), are so important. There is a communal and complete exposition of the gift…the deceased.

Grief not only looks backward at the gift which is no longer, but looks forward as well. It helps us to see the gifts in others and of others. That which we have lost we can find again in other people, though perhaps not in exactly the same way. Those things which we had wished we had done we are now called upon to do again.

The last time I spoke with my friend Michael I made a perfunctory offer: “If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know and I will do it gladly.” Mike didn’t hesitate with his response: “There is one thing you can do for me,” he began. “You can make sure and tell your wife you love her every morning.”

The days are worth the nights, but it is the nights which illuminate the days.

Dear God: During these dark nights remind me of the gifts lost and the gifts to be discovered so my days may be ever brighter.

“They, who have gone, so we but cherish their memories, abide with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French writer and aviator (1900-1944)

In loving memory: Mary Trudeau-Mottola and Alvin Hopkins

© 2010 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
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