As a minister of over 40 years, I have seen my fair share of death. As a U.S. Marine, I served on a number of Honor Guard assignments firing 21-gun salutes for Marines killed in Vietnam. In my very first pastorate as a 23-year-old novice, I had a funeral during my first week in the church of a man I did not know.
Over the years I have experienced death in more ways than I can count. As a former law enforcement chaplain, with 25 years’ experience, I was often called to the scenes of people who had died, or were killed, or who had killed themselves. Death is always present.
In my own life, I have lost all my grandparents, my parents, a granddaughter, numerous relatives, many friends, and scores of church members. In the last year and a half, as a priest enrolled in Clinical Pastoral Education in a local hospital, I have encountered death much more frequently than I ever imagined.
Sometimes the people who died are elderly and, as the Bible says, are “full of years.” Sometimes they are younger men and women, or youth, or children. Sometimes, babies are lost before they ever take their first breath. Others leave this earth at odd times, sometimes expected, and, at other times, it is tragically unexpected.
“How do you ever get over it?” I have often wanted to ask. I never have because the question is too personal, too full of pain. I have never gotten over the death of my father who died of cancer almost 20 years ago or the death of my mother some six years later. In fact, I still haven’t gotten over the death of my maternal grandfather who has been dead since 1973. How, then, do you get over the death of a spouse? Or a child? Or a grandchild?
Some time ago, a lady said to me, as though she could read my mind, “Someone asked me recently how I got over the death of my child. I told them that you don’t ever get over it. But you do move past it.” That, I think, is the truest answer I have ever heard.
A year ago, I visited the graves of my parents in northeast Tennessee. I stood there full of memories and regrets. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of loss all over again. In my 60s, I felt like an orphan and the pain was fresh. No, I haven’t gotten over it. But, with time, I have moved past it.
And, I’m not sure that we should ever get over it. The people we love, we tend to love forever, even when they are gone from our sight. The tears are not signs of weakness but of the reality of our humanness.
We weep because we care. We cry because we love. We grieve because we have lost someone precious.
In my world, I believe in an afterlife. Specifically, I believe in Heaven. I believe that I will see my Mom and Dad and my grandparents again. I believe that one day, when I die, I will hear the voice of my granddaughter crying out, “Papa! Papa!” as she greets my arrival. This helps me move past it. But never will I be over it.
When people say, “You need to get over this,” they are well-meaning but they are speaking in ignorance. It is likely they have never experienced this kind of loss themselves. But they will someday. That is almost a certainty. And they will learn to move past it, but they will never get over it.
It is both the blessing and the curse of being human that we have memories … and feelings. We have the ability to love and to care deeply. No, we never get over the loss of someone we hold dear. But we will move past it.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at [email protected].]
