Good morning…
Last Friday night, November 1st, I attended my friend’s Day of the Dead party, a sacred evening when we celebrate loved ones who have gone on to heaven. The photo above is the altar I built to honor two young men, two of my 24-year-old son’s close high school buddies, who have died suddenly in the past eighteen months. I took pictures of the altar and sent them to the mothers of these deeply missed sons who left earth abruptly. We three moms emailed back and forth throughout the evening and the next day, exchanging loving words. What did I bring for the “loved one’s favorite food” potluck? Of course homemade Stromboli, a comfort food all of our boys loved to devour with a basement full of their best friends.
A room full of strangers (I only knew the hostess) then began to stand at their own altars, one by one, sharing stories of their loved ones who are deeply missed. Mothers. Fathers. Aunts. Uncles. Friends. Spouses. Grandparents. Children. The memories were beautiful, touching, tear-provoking, memories chronicling each unique journey from earth back to heaven. Different modes of transportation carried people to God’s eternal home. Cancer. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Alzheimers. Suicide after a long life in a wheelchair. Various heart conditions. Old age. People told stories of how the innermost Spirit of their loved one grew more bold and more beautiful while their worn-out body gradually wasted away. These compassion caregivers filling the living room of my friend had accompanied their loved ones on a sacred journey before they gradually passed from this world to the next. The people honored had left earth in their 60’s, their 70’s, their 80’s, or their 90’s.
When the moment was right I stood at my altar to tell about two young men who died suddenly in their early 20’s. I shared some of the memories my son and our family had enjoyed with these vibrant young people, wrestling tournaments, school dances, vacation getaways, and I said that now I think of their grieving mothers every day. On the altar I had erected, I placed symbols for these moms forced to release their sons into the complete care of our Creator way too early and I had a symbol of me sitting crosslegged in prayer, surrounded by three empty glass jars and a lit candle. I lift these mothers regularly into the healing light of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, asking God to fill each one of us with whatever is desperately needed each day.
After everyone shared stories about our altars and our loved ones, a man came up to me privately and said, “Did you realize that you were the only person in the room who used the word ‘died’? Everyone else said their loved ones ‘passed away.’” I said, “That’s a really interesting observation. I guess that when we lose someone we love so abruptly without warning, I think we feel the ugly shock of the word ‘died.’ How could our loved one be awake in the morning and ‘die’ by night? This abrupt ending does not really feel like ‘passing away’.”
Our quiet conversation made me realize that the shock of a suicide, a drug overdose, a fatal accident, or any sort of sudden death forces us into a very different sort of grief. When a loved one dwindles down to skin and bones gradually then “passes away” right before our eyes, our grief can be tainted with a sweet sense of peaceful relief. When the Spirit of a love one is finally freed from an ailing body to return to our Heavenly Father, awe and gratitude can grow for a lifetime of shared memories.
It was a dynamic evening of story and sorrow, remembering and renewal, grief and joy. I loved sharing Stromboli with these strangers-turned-friends, listening to their touching, special spiritual moments, and telling hard, healing memories of these two deeply missed young men and their grieving mothers, forever friends for whom I pray daily.
So when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered what He had said. And they believed and trusted in and relied on the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken (John 2:22, AMP).
…Sue…
