How does one say a permanent farewell to a beloved adult son who
is departing in the prime of life? What hurts the most? What memories rise to comfort
a parent? What can bring understanding, if not acceptance, to an adoring wife?
Confronting these puzzling and troubling questions helps me understand the faith in
the deity which supports those who mourn the death of loved ones, even if I
do not share that faith.
I have always believed that by our behavior and principles we can act divinely. It is within us, by the nobility of will, not in some mysterious godlike power.
So, in grieving the death of my younger son David I will test my faith in my humanity. I will keep him with me, with all the memories, and he will for me
be eternal.
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1 comment:
At first I was not certain of your purpose in using that phrase but since Hemingway used it to reveal his own preoccupation with suicide it seemed far more likely you favored John Donne's funeral sermon 300 years earlier.
Donne captured the essential frustration and comfort of our attempts to explain mortality; "...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
As mature adults we eventually come to recognize the foolishness of youthful ego. Our fascination with physical and intellectual attributes dominates during the years when productivity and notoriety matter most to us. We then begin to realize our significance in the greater spiritual realm which envelops all of us, both breathing and not. If indeed solace can be given to the aggrieved it must surely be in our desire to listen rather than speak and to acknowledge our own limitations when trying to make sense of things we do not yet understand.
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