An extract from Wise Traveller: Loss

'O death, where is thy sting?' shouts one Christian scripture, with far more confidence than I usually have when staring loss in the face. And I am a Church of England priest...

Even those who have great faith in eternal life feel the pain of loss. It's hard not to when you spend a lot of time with grieving people. If we want to talk about death unsentimentally, then we have to accept that death actually stings very sharply.

Death stings through the feeling of devastation we have when someone close to us passes away. Death stings through anger too, if the loss seemed untimely or unjust. Death stings through anxieties about what a suddenly emptied future holds.

As a clergyman I often drop in on the relatives of one recently deceased. They will say, ‘We've got Dad in the front room if you'd like to go and see him.' It's not an offer you can refuse, even if every sinew of your spirit is pulling you the opposite way. Being a religious professional doesn't make it any easier.

And so, in your complete incomprehension and overwhelming sense of inadequacy in the face of absolute mortality, you stand beside a white cloth decorated with roses and look down on the dearly loved and lost one and find yourself talking inanely whilst an alternative – critical – commentary plays out in your head.

‘Doesn't he look peaceful?' you say (whilst thinking to yourself, of course he looks peaceful, you fool, he's dead!).

‘He would have liked having his family here with him tonight' you say (whilst thinking, he'd have liked it a lot more if he'd still been here with his family tonight!).

My experience is the same as for any visitor to a bereaved family. Somehow your visit consoles the mourners. Perhaps because they appreciate that you've opted, however reluctantly, to share your uselessness and vulnerability with them. They understand that all you can do is stand together in the face of death, feeling the rawness of the moment.

Death does have a sting, and our journey sometimes brings us to pause alongside those who have been newly stung by it.

John Davies

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