A Reflection on the Necrology (and My Mom, Who’s Alive)

As background, the Episcopal Church uses a governance structure that features a Vestry, roughly a dozen church members elected by the congregation. I am in my second term on the Vestry at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati. In our current practice, each month a member of Vestry is asked to lead a reflection at our meeting. Typically this involves selecting a relevant or poignant Bible passage, musing on the relevance or poignance of the passage to the member’s life experience, and a question to prompt further discussion among the group.

November was my month to offer a reflection. The first Sunday in November is used to celebrate All Souls Day. This service is always accompanied by the necrology – a reading of the names of those who died this year in our congregation, and anyone else who has died that someone from the congregation enters on to the list.

One of the Bible readings on this year’s All Souls Day was from The Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 3, verses 1-9.

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be a destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they have been punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God has tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever. Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.”

I listened intently to this verse in church, as I have been reflecting a lot on death and the concept of heaven lately. But in all honesty, a meditation upon the nature of death was not my plan for this reflection.

No, my plan was far more purposeful, maybe even political.

I was going to reference that we were in a time of pledging for next year. And I was going to admit I have not yet pledged but will in due time. Then I was going to cite a few key passages about giving. These would demonstrate my remorse for failing to pledge, and the sincerity of my intentions. I was going point out that what makes it worse is that when I pledge, it won’t nearly look like a tithe.

I was also going to use those passages to make the case for our church to give more money to address the housing crisis in Cincinnati.

But as happens, my political reflection was waylaid by Sunday’s All Souls Day service.

The necrology seems an odd service to love, especially from the perspective of someone not raised in the church. But as I sat this year, hearing the names of people I knew, crying as I always do whether I know the people or not, I realized I love this practice of remembering our dead.

I was struck by the inclusion of Cincinnati victims of gun violence, a list that this year contained two students of mine. Young men who challenged me as a principal and a person to continually find my Christianity and my humanity. A list that contained Foy Knierim (but not Chuck Ellman) whose deaths I witnessed here at church.

I was crying, but not for the people I knew who had died too early or for the trauma of witnessing death. I was crying for myself, and for the sudden but now always-looming specter of my mother’s death.

I was crying because I am exhausted at caring for my mom, who seems trapped in this world, not dead but only alive by somewhat limited definitions of that word ever since her ER visit and hospitalization in August and rehab that extended into September. Because of complications with medicines and what many call “polypharmacy” – simply the addition of more and more medicines with seemingly little regard for their effects or interactions, I have taken my mom back to the hospital two more times over the past month.

Despite the fact that she lives in an assisted living facility with wonderful and understanding nurses and aides, who occasionally exceed the expectations of the level of service their facility offers, I am stretched to provide nearly constant support to keep her living there. This has meant spending 12 or 24-hour shifts at her side, while she continually calls out in alarm. I often alternate these caregiving shifts with my wife Kathy, whose service to my mom has been nothing short of saint-like. But that means that Kathy and I are often separated from each other, and separated from our source of renewal and strength. My mom who depends on the two of us in a way she never depended on anyone before.

Her distress is continually broadcast to the world, “Jack, help me. Nurse, I hurt. Kathy, I can’t sit up.” Whose pleas come sometimes as frequently as each breath. Whose waking torment is too seldom broken by periods of sleep, into which she slides by repeating the name of those she implores for help, ever softer.

Usually it’s me, the only child of a single mom, “Help me Jack . . . Jack  .  .  .   Jack  .   .   .” the last one barely a whisper.

I was crying Sunday in church because I have prayed for my mother’s deliverance from this distress in every form. I have prayed for an answer. And I have prayed for death to relieve her from this distress. And I have prayed – to my great shame – even for her sedation.

I found myself so stressed and agitated from this caregiving that at times my temper grew short with Mom, even though I know that it is dementia and complications from medicines – not her – that is causing the problems. The caregiving separated me from my wife, my work, my hobbies and interests. Sitting at her side meant constant interruptions and an inability to concentrate on anything, even when she drifted into her restless, agitated sleep, she would call out for aid. Worse, my caregiving offered her no measurable relief. Her pleas were not less frequent or plaintive. Her distress remained.

During one caregiving break, I wrote a series of resolutions for myself to be a better, more comforting presence for my mom. I was proud of my ability to pull outside myself and offer distance and perspective and encouragement to myself.

However, in a matter of days I was again falling short.

My shame is that these days I am praying at times quite selfishly which, I promise you, is not according to my prayer custom. In normal circumstances, I pray with gratitude for my health and my family, and for strength to serve others, (though this was for a while interrupted by a period of fervent prayers for forgiveness.)

I listened intently to the readings Sunday, and I savored their promise of eternal happiness.

I realized I love this practice of remembering our dead.

I want to believe that death will take my mother to a place without affliction, where she is at peace. Where, in her spirituality that never took the form of religiosity, she can abide with any shepherd who can shelter her from her distress. And if God wills it, I want to believe she can find that peace in this holy city, for a little while longer, instead of helplessly hoping for it in the next one.

I also accept that perhaps the heaven where they reside is in our memories. Our memories of when their hands and hearts were quick. Our memories of their laughter and love. That heaven is, perhaps, the softening of their faults that happens over time. And maybe it is simply in the comfort of knowing that, as Solomon said, “no torment will ever touch them.”

And this brings me to the reflection part. This is, I admit, more like a request.

Thinking of any particular loved one, dying or already passed, what do you imagine THEIR heaven to be? Where do you know them to be, or wish them to be? In his sermon on Sunday, Paul (our Sub-Dean), suggested that Jesus was angry because he had to pull Lazarus back from such a beautiful place. What is the place that is so beloved by your loved one that it would make Jesus angry if he had to call them back?

Name the loved one’s relationship to you, and describe the heaven where they currently (or eventually will) reside.

And though this was a reflection for members of Vestry, who willingly and openly obliged my request with touching stories about their own parents’ deaths and their visions of heaven, I ask the same of you. If you would share with me your vision of Heaven as inhabited by your loved one, I would deeply appreciate it.