Friday, June 13, 2008

Thoughts while attending the funeral of a thirteen year old boy

Loss. Sadness.

He died from a tiny germ, caught at a hospital he was in for a simple, safe procedure.

Please, no more "God needed a Angel" songs. No more "I'm getting my
wings" language, please. I can't see how that helps.

He attended preschool at our church, with Micah. Micah has been in his class since then, in fact he's been at our house a couple of times for birthday parties.

When I die I want the people who know me to speak the truth, even if its tough. Its good to be in a community when you die, so there are people who know your name and your story, and can speak about you with insight and authority.

Life is completely unfair. If you want fair go study math.

Thirteen is a hard time of life at the best of times, let alone to having to face the death of a classmate.

Serious note to self: If I don't know the person who's funeral I'm officiating at, I better not guess at his personality and miss the real person.

The boy had the loves and passions and desires of a thirteen year old. The age between being a child and a man. Changing, unwilling to forget the things of childhood, yet finding them insufficient for becoming a man.

Life can be damn hard sometimes.

She says it better than I.

5 comments:

  1. Amen.

    No more "he's looking down protecting you" stuff.

    Poor parents, siblings, rellies and friends. It's damned hard coping with stuff like this, and even when you DO have assurance of stuff like faith and salvation, it never goes away totally, though the times when it is OK get longer.

    If you can, give the parents a hug from us.

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  2. I should add to that... thank you, and I agree.

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  3. Well, if that isn't a dose of perspective for a Saturday morning... I don't know what is.

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  4. I wonder what it would mean to be people who are honest and real enough that we can stare death in its ugly face and call it what it is, yet still be people of hope who trust in the grace of God and the work of Christ. I wonder how we would articulate the realities of something so permanent, and yet so temporary from an eternal perspective. How could we speak words of truth and words of comfort?

    Funerals are hard....

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  5. So true, "fake comfort" is no comfort. Ruth Graham Bell says something to the effect that sitting there and being quiet is better than saying something like God needed another angel, because a grieving person doesn't want to hear that.

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