Minister’s Column
I was on spring break last week, and my study book for the week was Nothing Gold Can Stay…the colors of grief by Mark Belletini. Still dealing with my mother’s recent death, this book was a good choice for me to continue my grieving work. It has a series of short chapters such as Grief and Ritual, Grief and Theology, Grief and Life, and Grief and Anger. Each chapter is the author’s reflection on experiences of grieving in his personal life and in his life as a minister.
Returning from spring break, I led a memorial service on Saturday for Mitch Jones. He is the father of Aaron Jones; father-in-law of Katie Zapoluch; and grandfather of our young Felix Jones. With Felix and his cousins present, I wanted to say something at the memorial service appropriate to children: something that would explain death in a way understandable to six year-old and 15 year-old cousins who have just lost a grandparent. Everything living will die eventually: all animals, all plants. This is part of the cycle of life: just like every other animal, we live, we grow old, and finally we die. Sadness and other feelings are normal when someone dies, and there is no right way or wrong way to feel. Come to think of it, the messages about life and death that we give to a child might not be so different from the ones we give to adults. After thinking it over, I decided to give a blessing to the grandchildren of Mitch that they be aware of this person’s special place in the family and his influence on others.
With some deaths, there is a sense that it was the right time and perhaps even that it was welcome. For a person struggling with a long and difficult illness, there can be a sense of relief. And yes, Mark Belletini’s book has a chapter called Grief and Relief. He says,
"Relief is a significant chapter in the scrolls of grief. We need not feel ashamed or guilty about our sense of relief that accompanies the death of someone who has suffered. Yet as the story of my grandfather illustrates, people will experience relief from different vantage points. For my mother, who had witnessed his suffering, the relief was palpable. For me, who had not, the relief was more intellectual, something my head understood, certainly, but which my heart could not."
As I am learning from my personal experience of grief, and what I witness in other families in grief, it is messy and varied. Grief does not fit into a box. Different members of the same family will experience it differently, and any one person will experience many feelings / thoughts / moods in their grief journey. It is a quintessential part of being human, and a very curious one.
PRAYER:
May love and comfort come to all those touched by the death of Mitch Jones; by the death of Anne Frantz-Cook; by the death of Ed Damer.
May everyone grieving be touched by peace, by forgiveness, and by hope.
Blessed be.
Rev. Andrew Frantz
April 2, 2024