circle of life

[Miriam]

Birth is the beginning of a person’s life and death, the end of a person’s life. As a practitioner of the Eastern Orthodox faith, death does not hold as a great a fear for me as it seems to on most Westerners. If you have led a just life, then you are assured life everlasting. It is the great hope of every individual. Each person in the method of his life determines the method of his death. So one strives to lead a just and righteous life within the precepts of his or her faith.

In the west, death is seen as the end – that’s it no more – once you are gone there is nothing else. There is frequently great grief and difficultly in moving forward, a need for intervention and so on. For us this is not so. The whole grieving process is supported and encouraged. The services are built in such a way as to facilitate the closure. You are giving a chance to say that final goodbye, to bestow that final kiss, to ask for that final forgiveness. By the time the first forty days have gone by, you are ready to move forward and live your life. The grief is still there, as is the loneliness, but that initial grief has been handled and you are ready to move on.

Children as also included in the process. They are given the same opportunities to say goodbye, as are the adults. In the West, I frequently hear how children are excluded from the funeral, left at home because they cannot “understand”, only to hear years later that they resent having been left out. The great failure here is the inability of some adults to explain death, to explain in such a way as to make it acceptable and without fear. What simple words do you use to explain what happens? How do you make it understandable?

The tears of an adult in grief are hard to bear, but the tears of a child are even worse. A child sees the stoicism of the family around her and the wonders why it’s so hard for her to bear the death. Why is she crying and not the parents or grandparents or her siblings? The fact that her heart is simply more sensitive and her nature is such that she will find release in tears is not something easily understood; rather she sees it as something wrong with her. The tears of a child are hard to bear and none around her are left without tears of their own. And yet such a child in the midst of her grief finds the strength to comfort her grieving aunt, parent or sibling.

How do you comfort a child who grieves that her newborn brother will never know his grandfather? How do you make her understand that it is through her memories that her brother will know his grandfather? Words are sometimes very inadequate.

[Logos Teen]

In the west, death is seen as the end – that’s it no more – once you are gone there is nothing else.

Miriam,

You are quite correct in pointing out that the Eastern Orthodox way of dealing with a believer's repose is touching and both emotionally and spiritually meaningful.

However, I must question your point of view regarding "the west", or at least your terminology. What, precisely, do you mean by "the west?" Secularism? Surely you cannot mean those Christian communities which follow the Western traditions. The Roman/Latin/Western Catholic Church obviously believes that there is both Eternal Life and Eternal Damnation after death. What one's beliefs are and how one responds to God are the determining factors in regards to where one "ends up." The Protestant bodies believe much the same, as far as I know. I have never heard of a Christian church or ecclesiastical community that accepts the idea that, "once you are gone there is nothing else."

I'm open to the possibility that I misunderstood what you were saying. Could you clarify?

Logos Teen

[Miriam]

Logos teen:
I'm sorry that I have confused you. I did sort of lump all the Catholic and Protestants together. I have had some, but not much, exposure to Protestant and Catholic funerals. My experience has not been that great. Most left me flat and when compared to my tradition very un-"satisfied" (?) or un-comforted. Eulogies have been lacking in that comfort level that I am used to. I know that there is a theology out there, but I rarely have seen it.

These were simply the thoughts that emerged during a recent personal experience.

Miriam

[Logos Teen]

Miriam,

I'm sorry that your personal experiences in these settings haven't been comforting. However, I do think it is dangerous to quickly prejudge a situation without full and heavy exposure to it. I do this myself sometimes and find that is always works to my disadvantage.

Logos Teen

[Justin Kissel]

I don't know answers to such thing, Miriam Have you come to any (further) conclusions?

[Miriam]

Justin:
I read your posting last night and was going to answer it immediately, but then I decided not to b too hasty. I decided to sleep on it.

I confess I am no better able to answer you this morning.

As adults we “understand” the death process, or at the very least we know what happens, whether or not we can handle it is another story. As Orthodox Christians, we are a little better (in my view) equipped to handle the death and grieving process. There is a whole host of writing on the subject. There are whole libraries of philosophy where we can turn to in an attempt to understand what death is and what happens to us after we die. Some of us need it more than others. As Orthodox adults we can speak with our spiritual fathers, go talk to the bishop, or simply turn to prayer. After all that is the inherent comfort of the panakhida (sorry never knew the English word for it). Your connection to the departed is maintained, you are “doing” something for the departed loved one. In my own case, I find that there is a certain level of serenity and peace achieved. There are also a myriad of organizations available if you require it. I had occasion to deal with the Hospice program once. What a pain! I did find some of their pamphlets somewhat helpful. They had a good pamphlet of the withdrawal process, but little on the spiritual aspect. They also could not understand that I did not need their grief counseling. They were still bothering me a year later.

This is all understandable from an adult’s perspective, but when it comes to a child you might as well throw most of it out the window. While all the above might give you a framework within which to formulate your answers, a child’s perspective is much different. Have you ever been in a position where a child stumped you with a question? You start to answer and then stop because you realize the pat answer is wrong? Inappropriate? Will cause more problems ultimately? Death is such a subject.

If you tell the child that a departed love one is simply asleep…. will the child be afraid to go to sleep?
If you go into to many details, will you lose the child? Will he or she understand?
If the spiritual father is hasty in answering, will you confuse the child?
What if you make light of their concerns? Tell them they are being silly, made to feel stupid?

A child’s perspective is generally straightforward. Black and white; yes and no; you can or can’t.
The philosophy of death is not straightforward. It’s difficult for an adult, so how much more difficult will it be for a child? Our spiritual writers were woefully negligent is giving us guides in helping a child in such a situation and we flounder as best we can. And even if there are guidelines, each child is different and so must be handled differently.

I have a nephew who has a photographic memory… he is also a brooder and worrier… a discussion you have with him today can and does brew in his mind for weeks and months. After due contemplation he will come back with more questions… while you have even forgotten the conversation and thought it was a done deal. He, of course, reminds you of what you said, but now you are left with a new set of “how come?” and “why?”. Often, it is the simple, straightforward answer that is necessary and not a philosophical discussion. Just answer the question posed…. It’s usually enough. For us adults, the difficulty is in finding the simple, understandable and satisfying answer.