Grief and loss: a death observed

Christian Century, Sept 24, 1997 by James M. Wall

The obituaries have become one of my favorite sections of the paper. I enjoy the little stories that emerge from the obits -- stories about a man who taught public school for 50 years, for example, or about someone who became the first woman to serve as alderman. I have no personal connection with most of the subjects, so I don't really grieve over their deaths. And I also like the obits because they leave out the bad stuff, the disappointments, the dreams unrealized, the mistakes made and the sins committed.

That wasn't the case with the massive media coverage of the death of Princess Diana. We knew a great deal about her -- not only about her story-book wedding, her role as mother of a future king and her support of worthy causes, but also about the bad or messy stuff -- her difficult divorce, her eating disorder, her adulterous affair and her romance with a man reputed t o be a playboy. Then, suddenly, she is gone.

Few of those who cried, threw flowers or signed condolence books ever actually met her. We knew Diana only through her image in the media. But the world grieved over her death, reacting first, as one should, in anger at whoever was responsible. Initially the anger was focused on the paparazzie who chased her, then on the tabloids who paid the paparazzi for their photographs of her, the more intimate the better. There was also anger at the driver of the Mercedes in the fatal crash, who reportedly was intoxicated. Finally, there was anger at the royal family for what appeared to be insufficient grief at Diana's death.

All this anger, while understandable, was misplaced. Our real anger was at death itself. When a figure as young, popular and public as Diana dies suddenly, something is snatched away from us. There is no reason to decry the anger and grief as inauthentic. Death does evoke a spirit of common grief. Any death diminishes the whole, and an early death, a senseless and preventable death, evokes the angry response that this should not have happened, and because it did happen, something has been taken away from us.

Though the outpouring of grief was focused on Diana, our real grief sprang from our own experience of loss or potential loss. The young woman trying to slip away from persistent photographers could be our daughter, sister or closest friend, snatched away without warning. There was no time for a final touch or a forgiving word. It is not her celebrity that drew the world together in grief; it was that she was someone who, it seems, should not die. Her death is a constant reality, ever threatening and rarely resolved.

Death always leaves me angry, whether it comes early or late in a life span. Death is part of God's plan, of course, but that is no reason to accept it without protest. I prefer to rage against this reality, which removes from our presence a child, an elderly parent or a beloved neighbor. To only rage against death, however, is an expression of self-centeredness. It is also a sign or bad faith, an unwillingness to accept the wisdom that death is not the end, but only the beginning.

Because nothing prepares us to lose a presence that has been a part of our lives, either casually or intimately anger is an important part of the grieving process. Why have I been forsaken? as the man on the cross put it with such fervor. Why me, why this way, and why at this time? The answers do not come, of course, so we need to gather together with others who have the same questions. But rage is not the final answer. We must mover beyond the rage and through the grief.

Which is why we need rituals, through which we may perform the same drama that others before us have performed, a drama in which we are linked to all who share in the disappointment, the regret, the bewilderment and, finally, the reluctant acceptance that our selfishness will not sustain us. We need the presence of others, we need the presence of God, to stand with us in grief.

The One who died on a cross felt desperately deserted in his final moments, but he did not cling to despair. Instead, he turned to those standing below and sent word across the centuries: embrace and love one another. Jesus accepted his own death and in so doing he taught us how to grieve over loss, embrace others in our sorrow, and then accept God's love as the guarantor that death is not the final ending.

Every death, no matter how senseless and premature, comes finally as a mysterious gift from God, a gift that promises a future filled with love for others who are still in our presence and memories of those who are not. We will grieve when we suffer loss, but we must also rejoice at the life we have shared with others.

Each of us will,m in due time, be invited to sing in a heavenly choir whose conductor knows far better than we will ever know why we must leave when we do. Hard to understand, because now we see only through the glass darkly:: but in the future we shall see clearly. Death, in all of its anger-producing, grief-inducing reality, reminds us that while faith and hope do indeed sustain, love remains the greatest gift we have or could ever receive.