The older I get the more sensitive I am becoming to the inner turmoil that the death of another causes. It is not just the feeling of mourning, or the sorrow, because they can be felt in different degrees, depending on the person who has died. There is something else, and while it can be mixed within the sorrow and mourning, it is something that can also exist when the experience of personal loss might not be that great. As a caregiver I have experienced this every time someone has died, no matter what my personal connection has been.

I am not sure how to explain it. I guess it could be pictured as an opening of a deep cold void, the disappearance of something that was once alive, vibrant, unique, now there is only an empty space where they once were. It puts a fog like pall over everything for a while, and I guess every time someone dies that I have worked closely with, this has descended upon me. In the past others have commented on this to me, how after the death of someone I take care of; I tend to zone out for a time, but I was not sure what they were talking about. Yet now I think I do. I get very cold inside, tired, a feeling perhaps of low level terror, the stark realization of how temporal everything is. For once one sinks below the waves, it is merely covered over, as if the life now ended never happened.

The few days before death are also rough. Again not so much ‘felt’ strongly, but a mode of existence taken on that is none-the-less grueling. Everything is set to make sure the one passing is comfortable, every need taken care of. There are visitors, phone calls to be made, and yes the simple waiting, which can also be draining. I am sure all caregivers go through this, over and over again, for I am sure my experience is in no way unique.

There is the sitting, the praying, and the reading of the Psalms, which often perfectly reflect what the dying one is going through. Filled with prayers of praise, trust and yes of terror, expressing the whole spectrum of human life and experience, in beautiful language, stark in its simplicity and beauty; there for all who wish to partake of it. All found in that beautiful book of poems/prayers, prayed over by Jews and Christians for thousands of years. For good reason, for if anyone wants to learn how to be honest before God, then this is the book to pray and meditate over. It is often not very pleasant, the emotions expressed, but they are the meat of our relationship with God. We are not angels, but flesh and blood creatures, which are often in deep conflict; and faith, can at times only increase that inner turmoil. I always have trouble with people who think that faith is in some way and escape from existence, when it often propels one into it very center.

I am of course dealing with the terror of my own ending, laid out before me over and over again as I ‘sit’ or watch with those dying. I believe there is a deep process going on in those who are approaching their entrance into the unknown. Faith can only give dim images of what happens when we are born (as I believe) into a wider reality. I also intuit as part the process, not only a stripping one of physical life but there is also an inner stripping going on, which is far more painful. It is like they are hanging between worlds, being healed in the only way possible, by seeing and naming and bringing before God’s infinite love, all that is within them that keeps union with God at bay. For it has to be based on openness from both sides, the soul allowing and God’s giving out of love; this much needed process. So yes I feel that the main grace of dying, and perhaps the most difficult, is this burning away of all dross that needs to be left behind. I think St. John’s “Dark night of the soul” speaks of this reality. As a Catholic I would say that this purgation, a grace, a mercy, is what Catholics call purgatory. What cannot be faced in this life due to human weakness is by grace extended to us outside space and time.

So today we return dear one to the earth. For me this is the final closure, at least on the level of feeling that inner void and coldness. It is the same inner cold that I feel on Good Friday, which deepens on Saturday and is dispelled on Easter Sunday. The Funeral Mass, the prayers, and yes the Sacrament of the Eucharist, so central to Catholic spirituality, brings healing, I hope to all. For this brings to us to the heart of the matter; our essential union with God, and how we truly must bear each other burdens, just as Christ did and does. Christ is the ‘bearer’ for we never journey alone, no matter how dark and cold it gets.

Love’s desire

In dying we hang between worlds, or so it seems,

when in fact they are one.

For many death is an ending, an entrance into eternal nothingness,

which perhaps is not really something to be feared,

a dreamless night never-ending, time stops, everything ceases,

no suffering nor joy, just an infinite ending.

If death however is an expansion into truth with all that implies,

perhaps that is what is really feared, where all things brought to illumination,

seen by the radiance, presented in mercy to be observed in complete truth,

what once feared to be faced, becoming ones reality, breaking the souls lies,

allowing the full experience of light and darkness exposed.

It is then when true mercy is extended, for it is truly a gift,

allowing loves passion to be expressed; and slowly for some,

perhaps more rapidly for others, to brings union to fruition,

for inner nakedness needed for God’s full embrace.

The deeper the truth, the greater the wrong or evil, or pain,

the more fiery the purging love cleansing all dross,

for God’s love is jealous of all other loves that lead to death,

desiring only the freedom of each beloved no matter the cost,

so yes perhaps that is why on a deeper level death is feared,

yet so be it, for truth in the end will win, for such is love’s desire.