Grief Alone

             I recently turned 60, and for the first time felt old.  My past birthdays never bothered me - in fact I kind of appreciated another "year of maturity."  But the number 60 just seems substantially older than 59.  I don't really know why.  But there is no question that I'm closer to my death than my birth - probably a lot closer - so it made me think about funerals.  My own funeral. 

              I don't know if anyone really likes funerals, but, to be honest, I hate them.  I hate to go to funerals because I just don't know what to say to people.  There are people I know who seem to have a real skill at comforting others.  Of course my lack of "skill" does not excuse me from trying to support people who are going through grief.  I still owe it to my friends and family to try.  I just hope they have a few "skilled comforters" around them also!

              At my funeral, I'd tell people not to come if they were uncomfortable.  Do something fun instead, I'd say.  But there are two major problems with that idea.  First, I'll be dead, so I won't be telling anybody anything.  And, second, "my" funeral isn't really "my" funeral - it's for all of those surviving me who cared about me or had some connection to me or have some connection to people who had some connection to me.  So, it's not mine to decide, frankly. 

              I know that one of my problems is that I have a hard time stringing words together that I doubt are really true, even if they are the best words for the person at the time.  Here's an example of what I mean:  I recently finished reading Stephen Hawking's book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", published (and partly assembled) posthumously.  Hawking was, of course, a very smart (and funny) physicist.  I also find his willingness to take on a variety of issues and questions in his books to be very impressive.  In this book, as in others, he leaves no room for doubt regarding his own beliefs about God and the supernatural.  He believed fully that physics left no room for God and, in fact, is convinced that physics proves that there could not be a God.  His beliefs did not leave room for even a tiny shred of the supernatural.  Or miracles.  Or life after death.  He believed that the universe will ultimately end in one of a few possible cataclysmic scenarios.  Actually, of course, he wouldn't have used the term "believe":  to Hawking these were facts based on the understood laws of physics.  So......what words of comfort can you really give at his funeral?  I would've had a hard time coming up with something.  Obviously people can look back at the great accomplishments in his life, all while battling ALS for decades and having to communicate slowly by computer and so on.  That is all good.  Great even.  But if he is right about the universe, it all ultimately means nothing.  Tolstoy summed this up in his excellent book "A Confession", which I have mentioned elsewhere and highly recommend.  If Hawking's view is all true, then life has no meaning.  Grief comes alone.  Yet, Barack Obama, at Hawking's funeral, offered the nice consoling statement: "I hope Stephen is having fun up there among the stars."  Unfortunately, I just can't bring myself to offer such platitudes when everything in me rebels against the blatant falsity of the statement.  If Hawking's beliefs are true, then he is dead and there is nothing beyond death and ultimately everything he said and did and wrote will be consumed in a black hole (ironically) and will all be lost.  If my beliefs are true, then he is definitely not in a better place and he will have an eternity to contemplate why his calculations didn't reveal God to him as it should have.  His beliefs and mine leave no room for comfort in this case.  There is no "having fun among the stars."  Grief comes alone, totally alone.

              I can't turn to spiritual comfort when that was absent prior to the person's death.  Although the person who has died ignored the spiritual all their life, now that they are gone, since there is nothing positive the secular view can offer, we turn to the spiritual world for comfort.  "They're looking down on us."  That seems like hollow comfort.  That's like pretending that Grief has an invisible friend called Hope.  A charade of hope.  I don't want anyone who survives me to have to go through that charade.  I want it to have been clear:  there is real Hope.  Grief is real, but so is Hope.

              In Hawking's case, grief is tempered by the fact that he lived a fairly long successful life and was battling a fatal disease, living well past the time that was expected of him.  But grief is still alone...it's just that the visit was expected.  How much worse it is to have that unexpected visit from grief alone.  When someone dies unexpectedly - when someone dies young - what real consolation is there?  I sincerely admire those who can offer consolation to people in those times - but I still struggle to express any of those things myself.  When Grief comes alone, I just can't wave to the side and say "Oh - look - there's Hope coming alongside Grief" when there is no hope there at all.

              I feel that the worst thing I could do to my family and friends is give them nothing to say at my funeral that is comforting without, frankly, lying.  Such a situation would be especially tragic if I never even explored, with serious intent, whether there might be a better view of the universe.  Whether, by some chance - some very very lucky chance - there really is true Hope.  If I missed that hope because, well, because I was just too busy, or because it didn't fit into my comfortable views of the universe at the time, or I couldn't derive hope from my physics calculations, or it didn't fit into my political views, well...to me that is the worst thing you can do to all your friends and family who survive you.  They will have Grief alone.

              Given this, I figure the best thing I can do is give people something real, true, and also comforting at my funeral.  I don't want grief to come alone to my family and friends.  I feel that the best gift I can give any of my family and friends is that, when they come to my funeral, they can legitimately say "he's in a better place" and "we'll see him again" and "he's looking down on us".  To be honest, I don't expect to be having "fun in the stars" - I anticipate much better!  I want to have lived in a way that gives my friends and family that real hope.  I want it to be a true statement that everyone who attends my funeral could see me again. 

              I want my wonderful wife to know that she will see me again.  It won't eliminate her grief or sense of loss.  But I want her to be absolutely certain that she and I will be in heaven together.  Grief will still be there at my funeral, but it will be standing together with Hope.

              Of course you would have to believe what I believe in order to have the same real Hope.  True enough; but one nice thing about my beliefs is that they are available to anyone who is still alive!  I have expressed, to the best of my ability, that pathway in the various entries of this blog, but it really comes down to your answer to this simple question:  if there really is a God, what would He have to do to get your attention?  If you can't answer that question with a serious, honest, well-considered response then it shows that you've rejected the notion a priori.  You will not see the light if you don't open your eyes!  You won't see the supernatural if you've already reasoned it out of any possibility of existing.  In that case there is no Hope and no hope of finding Hope. 

              Many reading this do not share my faith or anticipation that death is a transition to an eternal existence that is either "the best" or "the worst."  Many expect a void.  Nothingness.  For them, Grief comes alone.  I really wish you would allow Hope to come alongside.  I wish you would make own personal examination of the spiritual world.  Before you reject the idea of God out of hand, give Him a chance to prove Himself to you.  If, after that, you decide that death is the end and that the universe will eventually burn up and so nothing really matters, well, at least you made a serious consideration and exploration.  But don't we owe it to our loved ones to expend the energy to make a valid, rational, investment in considering life beyond death?

              At my funeral, my friends and family will not have to have Grief alone.  I have plenty of faults and warts and uglies, but the one thing I can say is that I made it a priority to ensure that Hope would come alongside Grief.  And for that hope - that future spiritual life - 60 years will still be infinitely closer to the beginning than to the end.