Nouwen: Love never dies
“When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyze us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thinking, feeling and acting are co-determined by them. When they die, a part of us has to die too. That is what grief is about: It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us. But as we let go of them, they become part of our “members” and as we ‘re-member’ them, they become our guides on our spiritual journey.”–Henri Nouwen, August 26, 2018, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation, from Bread for the Journey, henrinouwen.org.
My grandfather and his 20 siblings. He is third man on back row.
The God of my understanding does not give us a person we love deeply, and suddenly allows that relationship to end with that person’s death. Ours is a God of love. The love from that companion we so profoundly cared about is still there with us. We are still in a relationship with that person, but in a way we do not understand. Their love does not stop. Our love for them does not stop. Death is not a period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma.
Sometimes, when we remember events of ordinary and extraordinary times with the person we loved, we will also feel their presence and wisdom. We can still talk to them in this new relationship, which is still a mystery. Nouwen believes that we sometimes can be even more intimate in this relationship than in life. It is their love that we feel.
Love continues and never dies. Our loved ones are now in some way always present with us, while in life, they were only present when they were physically with us. Some people find it helpful to wear a piece of jewelry or clothing as a physical reminder of a relationship that is now spiritual.
The grief recovery work that we have been involved with for over twenty years, called Walking the Mourner’s Path, believes that one of the most helpful ways to stay in a relationship with our loved one is to honor the relationship we had. Amazing transformations have occurred. People have started suicide prevention programs, built walking trails, written books, developed new careers in helping professions, built halfway houses for those in recovery, given land where their loved one died to habitat for humanity.
For myself, I returned to the church and stopped smoking when my Grandfather Whaley died to honor him. My grandfather’s love cared for me while he lived and saved my life, even in death. I still feel his presence today, even over forty years since his death, especially as I write about him this morning and now send that love on to my own grandchildren.
I am also presently rereading letters my grandfather wrote to me in college and medical school over sixty years ago. I cannot express what it is like still to feel his unconditional love through now antique typed letters. I hope to share some of his letters with you someday.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com