Absalom: Nothing was ever accomplished with tears.
Alice: Absalom, why are you upside down?
Absalom: I’ve come to the end of this life.
Alice: You’re going to die?
Absalom: Transform.
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010)
One of the things that I’ve learned from these past years, experiencing personal loss for the first time in my life, is that everyone dies and everyone knows it, but no one actually believes it. I wondered throughout the year if that was some sort of denial of death or fear, but as a Catholic who knows as sure as there is a sky above us that my loved ones are with God, it makes for a strange feeling. Maybe we don’t believe we’re going to die because, well, as Catholics our loved ones never die. Of course, we miss them. We feel their absence everyday. Yet, to the faithful, we also feel their presence everyday.
It leads to a strange feeling. I’ve often asked myself surreal and darkly funny questions: Does Mom really need to be alive for the iphone 10 or the news of another horrific shooting? Hasn’t she already met my unborn children? For me, it is a strange healing to know that our loved ones are not here because, of course, they are. They haven’t died but transformed, their souls bigger and ever-present. Our beloved are in the cool wind, the crevices in the sidewalk’s cracks, the neon green of near rain. I’m reminded of an image: the volcano’s lava steaming and disappearing into an ocean. In the tectonic mixture of heated pain and cooling peace a new island is born. I’m not sure if I’m less afraid or more afraid of death, but one thing is for sure, on this week when we celebrate all the saints and all the faithful departed, my heart will be filled with great pain and great joy and hopefully you’ll find me smiling, excited to just have known them and looking forward to when I see them again. “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot