Rector's Blog: Holy Dying

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What is your prayer when you know someone is going to die? So many of my prayers for the sick and dying are centered around their return to health, for a cure, for an end to the disease, for a reversal of fortunes. Sometimes a prayer for healing is a reasonable request. Other times I pray for a miracle. To be clear whether healing seems reasonable or realistic or not, I should pray for it if it is what I hope and wish for. Sometimes it’s exactly the thing I need to pray. Sometimes “heal them” is the only thing that makes sense to me.

I remember kneeling in front of the bed and praying for my dad to be healed while paramedics were working on his body in the hallway around the corner. He was already dead, had been dead when they showed up, but there I was praying for healing. I don’t judge myself for that prayer. It’s what I wanted. I asked for what I wanted. And I don’t judge God for not making it so. There is so little I understand about life and death and how it all rests in the heart of the God who made us. God, my dad, me – we all did our part in that moment.

Death shows up. What is our prayer?

One of the great gifts of my job is the sheer number of times it puts me in close contact with death. I am invited into the room where a person will die, invited to pray over them, to thank God for their life. To witness the tears of their loved ones, to shed my own tears. There is heaviness there. It is not a joy. It takes a piece out of me. And also, I have come to see it as a gift. Death carries with it a sort of holiness. An ending that is shared by every living thing. We hold it in common. I have stumbled into the practice of praying for a holy death when I find out someone is dying. I have learned to pray this without flinching. Because I believe there is such a thing as holy dying.

A couple of weeks ago we at Church of the Redeemer lost a member of our community that was dear to many people. His name is Mike Krug. I will not give you Mike’s whole résumé – just know that he had been part of this church for over 60 years, and that he had been consistently involved throughout that time. A few years ago, Mike was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He was very open about this. The disease progressed slowly. But during these last years, other parts of his body began to rebel. His hospital trips became more frequent, the stays there longer. Eating and sleeping – two of his favorite things, became difficult for him. He frowned more, which was particularly difficult for us who know and love him because his smile was his trademark. Life was getting harder. Mike’s body was moving towards death.

Mike still laughed, still smiled more than most, and whenever it was humanly possible, Mike showed up. And this is what I keep thinking about. He sang in the choir. At one point walking became a problem, so instead of walking in with the choir during the procession, Mike began the service up in the chancel where the choir would end up. He wasn’t looking for attention – the only one up there when the service began – and he also wasn’t embarrassed by this. He was just solving a problem. How can I keep showing up. Eventually he could not sing in the choir, and he was using a walker and sitting in the pews with his wife. For the last few months of his life, when he was able to attend church, he would not come up for communion and we’d bring it to him there in the pew. He was always gracious and always grateful.

I loved so much how his eyes lit up when he smiled. I miss him.

What I kept thinking about during this time was how Mike allowed us to see him age. He allowed us to see him when he was frail, when he was in pain, when he was dying. He didn’t have to do that. But it was true to his spirit. And here’s what I mean by a holy death: Mike showed us something about God in the way he died. He showed me that a person can be as much a part of a community in their weakness as they are in their strength. I don’t always remember that. I get caught in the trap of believing I always have to earn my keep, to prove my worth, to always appear ok.

A thing is holy when it points us toward something true about God. Mike showed up in whatever shape he was in because he knew that he belonged to God and to us just as he was. That is holy.

I don’t believe that there’s only one right way to go. There is holiness in every death – every one of them pointing to God. Earlier this year, a parishioner named Elizabeth Lilly died. They found that she had an obstruction of some kind and they would need to do surgery even to figure out what it was, with no guarantee that she would get better. Elizabeth was 89 years old and said something to the effect of no thank you, we won’t be doing any of that. She opted for palliative care. Once when visiting her in the room where she would die, it was just the two of us, and I said, “Well, do you want to talk about dying?” And she said, “Why not? Nobody else wants to talk about it with me and it’s going to happen!”

She was not like Mike, in the sense that we did not see much of her towards the end. But the way she faced her death, the determination and humor and clarity of it: It was holy. Every person you meet was made by God. Every single one of them bears the mark of the divine. If you pay attention, you can see it. When you have the privilege to love someone and be loved by them, you can see God’s holiness in so many parts of their living and their dying. This is a gift.

Death is still sad, by the way. Sometimes someone will try to talk you out of being sad when a loved one dies. Don’t buy it. You may even try to talk yourself out of being sad. You may admonish yourself, saying your loved one wouldn’t want you to be sad. Well, they’re dead so they don’t get to judge how you feel about it. We may believe in an afterlife. We may believe in Heaven, in the resurrection, in eternity, but here and now we can miss the people who have died. That does not undermine death’s holiness. Our sadness is holy too.

On the last day Mike was really conscious I got to talk to him. I knew it would be my last time. I got to tell him he had made a big impact on me. He laughed when I said it! He laughed, rolled his eyes a little and said, “Oh, I’m sure I did a lot.” But you did, Mike. Even in your dying you taught me something about life. Thank you for that.