To be honest, I don’t remember every funeral I officiated during my hospice years. There were so many with often little more than a few hours of knowing the person or family. However, I was contacted this week by a family that I do remember. Around their mother’s death there were several moments that I have come to think of as “thin” places - times when the division between God’s actions and our vision, between our connections with loved ones in heaven and the loved ones on earth seems to be divided by only a sheer curtain. It was memorable to share those signs and symbols with them. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have these reassuring “thin” moments, but they did.
Symbols and death, Transfiguration Sunday, life changes - perhaps those were what my subconscious was working on when I woke up after a dream this morning. I dreamt that I was burying a child - my infant child. Further, I was upset that the funeral director was allowing the child to be buried in a basement. Yes, I know about interpreting dreams and basements. So I had to think... what does it all mean? Well, several things - but here are two:
I am at the stage in life when my body is telling me that I won’t be having any more children. Of course, that hasn’t been an issue since our last child was born but yet I think there is something symbolic for a woman when she knows that her body can no longer sustain life within it. When I pray to Creator God, when I read in the psalms that we are known by God “in the mother’s womb,” there is a level of resonance with those images because of pregnancy and childbirth. That identity, one who can nurture new created life, is dying. For some women, that reality comes much earlier in life. For many, it is part of that middle age journey that is both physical but also very spiritual in nature.
I also woke up thinking about our spiritual connections to people that have died. I have told people in grief for years that after the loss of a loved one you don’t forget them you simply come to a point where you establish a different kind of relationship. I now have greater confidence that it is true. It doesn’t matter where my loved ones are buried, nor do I need what is left of their bodies or the physical things from my childhood home as much as I once did. I sense a different kind of relationship, a unique connectedness, one that is more spiritual in nature. My relationship is with the memories, the values, the parts of me that have been shaped by their influence - both in life and in death. These are the things I need to hang on to. The rest can be buried.
According to my records, at the hospice funeral that I mentioned at the beginning, I read a poem by an unknown author.
Go bury thy sorrow,
the world hath its share,
Go bury it deeply
Go hide it with care
Go bury thy sorrow
let others be blest
Go give them the sunshine
and tell God the rest.
