Monday Candle Moment: Remembering Those Who Mourn

This past week, two deaths came to my attention.

They occurred under dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances and at oppo­site ends of the spec­trum of life, but both had the same result: Loved ones were left behind to mourn and those folks are the focus of this arti­cle. We all need to light a can­dle for them today.

The first pass­ing was of Bill Gunter at the age of 80.¹ Bill was a beloved retired Eng­lish teacher who was also an extremely tal­ented musi­cian and per­former. Nobody played a wash­board or sang a Dix­ieland jazz tune like Bill. In 1992, he joined my friend Bob Romans’ band, Cell Block Seven, hold­ing court with his wash­board, pon­der­ing “How do you tune this thing?” He told jokes between and intro­duced the musi­cal selec­tions, sang a few tunes and, most of all, pro­vided per­cus­sion. He had a sin­gle cym­bal on a stand which he thun­ked from time to time with a drum­stick tugged in his back pocket, ready to be whipped out at the oppor­tune moment to pro­vide just the right empha­sis. He also strummed and clunked that wash­board in time with the tunes, per­form­ing a solo riff from time to time with a twin­kle in his eye and smile on his face. Bill loved to per­form, loved jazz, and com­mu­ni­cated those facts to his audience.

The last time we spent a Fri­day evening at the Dry Creak Steak House in nearby Galt², we were sur­prised to see that Bill was not with the group. Bob explained that he had suf­fered heat stroke a few days before, but was recov­er­ing nicely and would rejoin the group as soon as he was able. A cou­ple of days later, I told Bob that, although the group played well and we enjoyed their per­for­mance, some­thing was miss­ing and that some­thing was Bill. He was the glue that that held the group together. We were look­ing for­ward to see­ing the group again — with Bill back in action — when we heard that his heart sim­ply gave out and he crossed over into eter­nity a few brief days after his 80th birthday.

His wife, chil­dren and grand­chil­dren remain to miss his pres­ence in their lives, but cel­e­brate a life lived fully dur­ing which he enjoyed two suc­cess­ful careers — one as an edu­ca­tor and the other as a jazz per­former — and trav­eled around the world with his band­mates. He is gone but the band’s CD’s and video­taped per­for­mances are last­ing reminders of the joy he brought to his audiences.

In con­trast, as I was click­ing from site to site the other evening, I hap­pened upon Life with Han­nah and Lily where their mom, Rachael, writes about the adven­tures of and moth­er­ing her two lit­tle girls.

How­ever, as I perused the pho­tos of beau­ti­ful flow­ers that greeted me there, I was stunned to real­ize that I was read­ing the words of a griev­ing mother who described select­ing those flow­ers in honor of her recently deceased daugh­ter. Stunned, I scrolled down the page to see what had hap­pened and found myself star­ing silently at my com­puter mon­i­tor with tears run­ning down my cheeks when I came upon these words:

Our danc­ing queen is now danc­ing with the angels in heaven. There was an acci­dent while we were at the beach yes­ter­day and she drowned. I keep hop­ing it was a HORRIBLE mis­take and that some­one will call and say, she’s fine, she’s just fine. You may come and get her and bring her home.

Oh, GOD I HURT!!!!

Please please pray for my fam­ily. Please!

I refreshed the page, cer­tain that I had mis­read Rachael’s words. No, there they were again. “[S]he drowned.” I stared at the pho­tos of the beau­ti­ful lit­tle girl show­ing off her new bathing suit proudly, real­iz­ing that just a lit­tle while after those pho­tos were taken, she was yanked from this life, leav­ing her par­ents and lit­tle sis­ter, Lily, heart­bro­ken, dev­as­tated and unsure how to con­tinue living.

Two fam­i­lies. Both lost loved one under very dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, but both are griev­ing today.

Last night Rachael wrote:

Tomor­row is the day I have to for­mally acknowl­edge Han­nah won’t be com­ing in to snug­gle me in the morn­ing. Tomor­row is the day peo­ple will begin to stop com­ing by and vis­it­ing. Tomor­row is the day this mad­ness, this crazy dream, will all become real and I will most likely crash. I don’t want to lose this bub­ble of numb­ness I’m cur­rently in–there’s some­thing com­fort­ing in just not feeling.

If you have ever lost some­one dear, you know that Rachael’s fears are well-founded.

The first few days are actu­ally the eas­i­est because there are details to be han­dled — a ser­vice to plan, final arrange­ments to be made, friends and rel­a­tives to be noti­fied who then flock to your home with food and words of comfort.

If death came sud­denly and unex­pect­edly, the first few days imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the loss are marked by shock and dis­be­lief. Sev­eral friends who have sur­vived the tragic acci­den­tal loss of a fam­ily mem­ber have told me that they barely remem­ber the days imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the death or the memo­r­ial ser­vice. One woman con­fided to me, “It’s all a blur. I was just going through the motions, walk­ing around on autopi­lot. I fell apart later when ‘it’ hit me.”

The “it” in that sen­tence is, of course, the real­iza­tion that a loved one is truly gone from our midst. His/her pres­ence is keenly felt in the ensu­ing weeks and months; that’s when the dif­fi­cult work of griev­ing and sur­viv­ing takes its toll.

My in-laws were mar­ried 39 years and my par­ents cel­e­brated their 50th anniver­sary 10 months to the day before my father died. I dis­tinctly remem­ber my mother-in-law and mother sit­ting on the couch com­par­ing notes on wid­ow­hood. My mother-in-law remarked that nights were the worst time, even though my father-in-law had been gone for many years. She said, “I wake up at night and real­ize again that Bob is gone. It feels like a punch in the gut.” My mother concurred.

I was always impressed by both women’s desire to spare us from their grief or loneliness.My mother, for instance, always had an upbeat atti­tude, telling friends and acquain­tances who inquired that she was doing just fine because, “it’s hard, but after all, I have my two daugh­ters and four grand­sons to live for.” After my father’s memo­r­ial ser­vice, my mother never again cried in front of us, but I know that adjust­ing to life with­out my father was extremely dif­fi­cult. And so it will be for Bill’s lovely wife, Beverly.

For Rachael and her fam­ily, the days ahead will be even more dif­fi­cult as they mourn all the lost pos­si­bil­i­ties the future once held for Han­nah.  Their days will be marked by ques­tion­ing and strug­gling to under­stand an impon­der­able reality.

I call upon all read­ing this to visit Life with Han­nah and Lily in the days and weeks to come. Leave a com­ment with words of con­do­lence or com­fort. If you have sur­vived a sim­i­lar loss, leave a note of encour­age­ment, share your story, let Rachael her fam­ily know that they are not alone in their grief.

Light a can­dle today for all who mourn whether the loved one they lost was young or old, taken sud­denly or released from the rav­ages of a lengthy ill­ness. Sur­round them with prayers for accep­tance, peace and emo­tional, spir­i­tual and psy­cho­log­i­cal heal­ing. Write them a note or give them a call to let them know that you are think­ing about them and send­ing your love.

1. See In Memo­riam: Bill Gunter.
2. Cell Block Seven per­forms there a cou­ple of Fri­day evenings per month

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