On this day nineteen years ago, I received a phone call that would change the rest of my life. My dad called telling me my mom had been killed in a car accident less than a mile from home, the place where I type these words today.
Until that day, death had always been more distant. I lost grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others. But that day, it was the day death took up residence in my home. No visit home would be the same. No phone call would find her voice on the other end. The woman in whose womb I grew and from who was I born was gone.
Death was much more present from that day forward. While driving I would often think about someone hitting me. Death found itself on my mind more than ever. Fear, fear of death and suffering, was a constant companion.
During my years in full-time minstry, death continued to take up residence. A mother of four dying from a brain tumor while her children were still relatively young. A worship leader’s unexpected death from an unforseen heart issue leaving behind his wife and three children, one of them yet to be born. A youth group member killed in a tragic car accident and the memory seared into my mind of standing next to the parents as they received the news. A child killed while sleding when he was hit by a truck. The death of my brother-in-law from a heart attack, right in front of his wife and children.
These are certainly not all of my encounters with death, but most of the deaths above occurred in a relatively short period of time, driving me into a depression I told no one about for quite some time.
I subscribed to our American narrative about death. You know the one. We don’t like death. We talk about it as little as necessary. We leave it up to professionals to deal with things like handling the corpse, dressing the body, and preparing it for a proper viewing. We like death as clean as possible.
I believe this is part of the reason we worship youth, health, and medicine in our culture. We want to be young forever, aging serving as a reminder of our mortality. I think it’s one reason we place our elderly in nursing homes. We strive to be healthy, telling ourselves the lie that if we stay healthy, we can cheat death. I am not opposed to taking care of our bodies, but not for the wrong reasons. We often believe the medical profession will save us from death, contributing to our nation spending countless dollars to extend life a few weeks or months, regardless of the quality of that life, seemly to prove that we can beat death.
The reality is, death is unavoidable, an integral part of life.
My relationship with death has shifted from fear to embrace over the last three years, starting December 5, 2014. On that day, shortly after 11:00 in the morning, I stood next to my father, told him I loved him, held his hand, and witnessed his last breath. For the next few hours, I sat there with my dad’s body as family members stopped by.
I slept in the room with my dad the night before, waking several times to look at his body, weary from the cancer that had overtaken him.
Holding my dad’s hand that morning, I was holding death’s hand, too. My journey with death took a turn that morning. The fear exascerbated by my mom’s tragic car accident was overcome by the peace in the moment my dad’s body stopped working. It was a sacred moment.
Since my dad’s death, I have learned to embrace death. Not a desire to die, but no longer a fear of death. Over the last three years, my dad’s death has served as a catalyst, freeing me to face fears that paralyzed and haunted me for years.
Today, death walks with me every day. We hold hands and journey together. Every breath I take, one breath closer to my last. Every morning I awaken, one sunrise closer to my last sunset. Every moment, one step closer to my final moment of life.
This may sound morbid, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Walking hand in hand with death has removed the fear. I die a little every day, making the need to live even more critical. I don’t fear death anymore because my death will simply be the final step in a journey towards death that I walk every single day.
Between now and then, I will live. I will live the abundant life that Jesus speaks of. Death has taken much from me throughout my nearly five decades in this world, and I am sure death will take more before I die. But I will have the last laugh, for I am already holding death’s hand and am half a step ahead.
Breaking Into Peace 