Category Archives: death

Goddaughters like Flowers

church, death, my garden, quotes, , , , , , ,

Joy and sorrow have been mixed up together for me this week, as it has been lifeGL helianthemum macro 5-15-eventful in a similar way to the days surrounding my husband’s death two months ago.

Yesterday morning as I was standing at the kitchen sink I noticed out the window that the foxglove was blooming. I had been neglecting the garden and never noticed the flower stalk that must have been shooting up.

GL foxglove may 15

It was another overcast beginning of a day, perfect for pictures, so I went out with my camera to see what I could see – there’s a lot of beauty in my messy garden right now.

Over the last several years I’ve had the honor of being the sponsor/godmother to three women who all came into the Church as adults. One of them, Kathleen, told me when I first met her that she had a medical condition that was probably going to kill her, though her symptoms were well-managed at the time. We lived in the same neighborhood and became close friends.

Kathleen declined very quickly in the last few months; I was consumed with my husband’s care and didn’t know how ill she was, until he died and she gave out of her need to our family. She came to our house, barely able to walk in a straight line, and spent at least an hour reading Psalms and weeping by his coffin.

P1120701 kf read casket
Kathleen at Mr. Glad’s casket

A couple of weeks ago she went into the hospital and was put on hospice care; many of us from church have been visiting her and I know she has felt the love of the Lord through His people. She’s been very peaceful in her distress.

The experience has been less peaceful for me, because of the similarities of her decline to what I went through so recently. I was angry for a week, over having to reawaken this chapter of my grief. For two days I couldn’t make myself go to the hospital to see her — I was too disabled by emotion to face the staff and other people who might be around, and I wished that K. were still at her house where I could be alone with her.

My priest came to the rescue when he asked me to come along the first time he brought her Communion in the hospital, and since then I’ve spent many hours by her side, talking at first, and reading things she wanted to hear.

GL rhodie bud 5-15
rhododendron bud

At the same time, I was helping to prepare for the baptism of a new baby in our church, little Mary for whom I had been asked to be godmother, way back in the early part of the year. Last week I had the joy of laundering the baptismal gown that she would wear, a dear little dress in which her mother had also been baptized.

Sunday was the day: “Our” new baby was dipped in the font, and her tiny squirming self placed immediately in a big towel in my arms. I helped to dress her in this frock and put her new cross around her neck. Then she was anointed with holy chrism, “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

GL baptism May 15

If you have never had a whiff of holy chrism, it’s worth attending an Orthodox baptism just to get an inkling of what it is like to participate with all your senses in the realities of the faith. In my parish all the newly-illumined carry about them this scent of heaven for at least a few hours, but this was the first time I held a goddaughter in my arms and was able to share so intimately the added sweetness, reminiscent of my own baptism eight years ago, by nuzzling a baby. It was a wonderful, almost magical day, all through, but just the beginning for Mary. I look forward to praying for her and loving her for many years on this earth. For that matter, after I leave this earth, why would I want to stop?

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chives

Kathie wasn’t able to attend the baptism, but afterward I spent some time with her and told her about my new goddaughter. Later in the week she lost the ability to talk, but we kept on reading psalms and prayers for her. We anointed her with holy oil and tried to make sure she was comfortable; one friend played music through Ancient Faith Radio on her smart phone for a few hours last night.

This week I have begun to understand that the timing of these events is a gift from the Lord. He’s giving me the means of experiencing the sorrow and meaning of my husband’s end of life in a way I wasn’t free to do at the time, because I was caught up in the swirl of decisions and tasks and being there in each moment. I didn’t have time to think, “These are the last days, or hours. You are about to be cut apart from your soul’s partner.”

But at this point I have been able to pray for Kathleen and grieve for myself at the same time. It’s certainly not anything pleasant, but I can appreciate the benefit, because I am someone who likes to do a thorough job of whatever is necessary.GL begonia apricot may 15Kathleen fell asleep in the Lord early this morning when none of her friends was with her. May her memory be eternal! At noon four of us women from church prepared her body for burial, washing it and smoothing it all over with a special olive oil that had been infused with heady aromas of flowers. At the end of life, as at the beginning, out of love we lavish good smells. I was reluctant to wash my hands afterward, not wanting to lose the reminder of the grace that we all felt, and the honor of being able to minister to this earthly vessel, the body that was her means of worshiping God all these years.

The flowers in my garden tell this story that is the story of all of us: …as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting….

One blossom is just opening, exquisite and pure, and right next to it in God’s garden another flower has faded and will soon return to the earth from which she sprang not so long ago.

GL helianthemum yellow 5-15
helianthemum

But that will not be the end, because we are not flowers, but humans made in God’s image. Jesus Christ assures us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Even though we are more than flowers, I am reluctant to be done with the metaphor. So, think of this: As we are made in God’s image, we have the potential and the opportunity to be gardeners of souls the way He is, co-laborers in loving the people around us, as we are cared for by Him. Let us tend His garden with love, as long as He gives us strength.

Tomorrow is one of the Soul Saturdays that we have in the Orthodox Church, on which we commemorate those who have gone to their rest. Archbishop Stylianos tells us that “Christians always took care, with memorial services and charitable acts done especially on Saturdays, to stay close to their dead and ask God for their repose and salvation.”

This spring appears to be a time God has specially given to me to stay close to my dead, so I will attend liturgy and eat koliva. Next week I will also read Psalms by Kathleen’s casket in the church, and attend her funeral.

We will be in the season of Pentecost then. My heart is more peaceful and light than last week, and it will be further nourished in this season when we sing, “The Holy Spirit has descended!” Enliven us, O Lord.

One keeps emerging.

death, grief, quotes, writing

… in grief nothing “stays put.” One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often — will it be for always? — how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, “I never realized my loss till this moment”? The same leg is cut off time after time.
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

In reading quotes about grief, I notice that many of the ones that ring true are from Lewis’s book about his wife’s death. I downloaded it to my Kindle so I will start reading the whole thing tonight.

Many things keep me from writing about my own grief, but the biggest hindrance may be the strangeness of it. Every day I am startled and disturbed by a new discovery — of an ache or a gaping hole or a missing component of myself. I am helpless against the ambush of thoughts and emotions whether it comes just as it did yesterday, or by a fresh route.

That all sounds like grief is something outside of me, but of course it’s what is going on in my heart; it is Me. This Me is a woman I don’t really know; she is mystifying and unpredictable. I don’t know what else to write about her, but I pray for her.

40 Days

church, death, food and cooking, ,

P1130350It is traditional in Orthodox churches to have a short memorial forty days after a death, and though my husband was not Orthodox, I am, and I am the one remembering and praying for him. Last week my priest generously held this service, called a panikhida, and I prepared the dish of boiled wheat called koliva for us all to eat together at the end of the service.

I’m sure that in homogeneous cultures women learn from other women how  to make this ceremonial food, as they work in the kitchen together. I learned from other women via the Internet, and it worked out fine.

P1130314 boiled wheat dryingThe essential ingredient is boiled wheat – but actually, even that is not essential, because sometimes it is rice, or lacking wheat, barley or another grain can be substituted. But the image of a kernel of grain being buried endures, as in the Gospel of John Christ speaks of His own coming death, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

Below is a picture of the koliva at a one-year panikhida for someone else, which had been held the week before at my church. That one was decorated with gorgeous yellow roses.

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I boiled the wheat, which was said to be enough for 40 small servings, and then laid it out on towels to dry for a couple of hours, as the Greeks in particular like to do. One Greek woman made a strong point about what she considered the superiority of this dry quality, contrasting it with the Romanian koliva which was said to be like pudding.

Most koliva that I had eaten was also more loose and dry, so that appealed to me. But I also read that the Romanians often decorate their wheat with chocolate, which custom I planned to imitate.P1130224 blanched almonds

I included a small amount of cumin, cardamom, and cinnamon —  less of the cinnamon than most people do — golden raisins, almonds and walnuts, and orange zest. It was the first time I had tried blanching almonds, which was easy and fun. When after blanching I squeezed the skins off the nuts, one of the nuts shot across the room and into my open pots-and-pans drawer. I haven’t gone looking for it yet.P1130341

Some of these ingredients were mixed into the wheat as soon as it was dry, but the walnuts I chopped and spread on top, under a layer of graham cracker crumbs which is put there to keep the last layer of powdered sugar from dissolving and disappearing into the wheat. You want it to stay on top and be gleaming white. The usual technique for the top is to lay waxed paper on the powdered sugar to flatten it and make it smooth, bukoliva w graham crackerst I put the final layers of my dish together in the church kitchen where I could not find any waxed paper. My alternative method didn’t work so well, which is why the surface of my finished product has some flat areas, some imprints of my fingers, and some sugar untouched.P1130317 blue candies

I decorated the top with Jordan almonds and chocolate pastilles, and with some little blue baking decorations that I separated out of a color mixture.

The panikhida was held in the evening. Several people from my husband’s church came and stood with us near the Crucifixion icon and we all held candles for prayers and hymns and “Memory Eternal.” Then I scooped out portions of the koliva into little Dixie cups for people to eat together in honor of my dear husband. As it is spooned up everything gets mixed together and sweetened by the powdered sugar, and one tries to give everyone a bit oP1130350f chocolate or a candy. The koliva recipe was judged to be excellent.

That morning of the 40th day I drove to the cemetery to see the grave marker that had been put in place, and to bring some flowers. There were barely enough nice blooms left on our snowball bush to make a cross on my husband’s grave, so I added some calla lilies and roses, and I sat for a while on the grass there. On the way over in the car I had listened to jazz on the radio, to feel him close to me, but at his grave I sang, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”P1130330

Love is real and it maintains.

death, grief, love, quotes, , ,

mrg&G 5-11 yellow Butte lgFather Alexis Trader in another article on grief, excerpted and linked below, discusses not just the memories we hold of those who are departed, but the love that binds us to them even after our former connection is gone forever. Notice that it is not the loved one who is gone forever, but the nature of the relationship.

That the relationship one has with those who have died can continue to change is something I haven’t given much thought to in my own case, though I have heard of a person asking or offering forgiveness at the gravesite of someone with whom they didn’t have “closure.” Not knowing back then that it would pertain so closely or so soon to my experience, a few months ago I printed out an article from the Internet on the subject of “Dostoevsky and Memory Eternal” but didn’t read it until after my husband died.

I always love the hymn “Memory Eternal” that is sung at the end of every Orthodox funeral service, and I was eager to read what conjunction the writer Donald Sheehan found between it and The Brothers Karamazov, a novel that I also find very meaningful. About half of his article discusses the theology of Fr. Pavel Florensky and conditions of personhood, but it was the second half that most affected me so far, where Sheehan describes the events of his life and how they led to him becoming Orthodox. His father had been the cause of chaos and suffering for his family, but after he died, seemingly in response to his son’s own efforts at reconciliation, the father gives him a great gift.

Thanks be to God, I could not relate to the kind of pain that Sheehan lived with, between me and anyone I’ve known. It was the love he had for his father, of a kind that would not give up even after death, that resonated with me in the first days after my husband died. In his article on Grief and Human Bonds Fr. Alexis quotes two church fathers on this topic:

As Saint John Chrysostom once wrote to a widow, “For such is the power of love, it embraces, and unites, and fastens together not only those who are present, and near, and visible but also those who are far distant; and neither length of time, nor separation in space, nor anything else of that kind can break up and sunder in pieces the affection of the soul” (Letter to a Young Widow). That love was real, is real, and leaving it free to maintain a bond with the beloved is a healthy, real response to grief.

When Saint Ambrose of Milan’s brother died, he wrote “My relationship with you is not lost, but changed; before we were inseparable in the body, now we are undivided in affection; for you remain with me, and will always be with me” (Book 1 on the Decease of his Brother Satyrus). In the same spirit, Saint John Chrysostom once consoled a parent who had lost his son, “I beg you, do not say ‘I am no longer called father,’ for why would you not be so called while your son remains? For you surely have not parted with your child or lost your son, but rather obtained him and have him safe.”

At the cemetery this week Fr. Michael exhorted us about the ways we can continue to love those who are no longer present in body. His words, “Do good deeds in their name,” reminded me of the broader concept of living the kind of life that honors the one who has died, and that will keep me on the road that leads to the great rendezvous at the end time. (The thought of that meeting causes me to wonder: Do you suppose we will hug with our new bodies?)

In the words of St. John Chrysostom, I may have my husband safe, but does he have me safe? I am still on my journey, and my love for him will help me to stay on track.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8)

 

(Photo credit: Pippin)