“But, Gran, is everything really all right? Really?” It is completely cosmic questioning, coming from a small girl in a white nightgown with a toothbrush in her hand, sensing the unfamiliar surrounding the familiar……I must answer it for her, looking down at her serious, upturned face…”Yes, Lena, it is all right.” And the two little girls and I climb into the fourposter bed to sing songs and tell stories.
-Madeleine L’Engle

“Is everything all right? Really?” Though it assumes different aspects at different times, it is our most basic question. It is behind our ventures into theology and ethics, behind our anguished dreams, our fears and hopes as we stand at the bedside of loved ones, as we confront the mystery of death. There is no way we can know all the particulars on how “all right” everything is. But if we can trust that behind life’s mysteries and dilemmas that is a Creator who knows what is going on and who wishes us well, that’s a very good start. And then what? What could be better than to sing songs and tell stories?

Martha Whitmore Hickman. “Healing After a Loss”. New York: Harper Collins, (1994).

What is there to do when people die – people so dear and rare – but bring them back by remembering?
- May Sarton

One of the truly helpful customs of recent years is that of providing an occasion – in the context of a memorial service or in some other specified setting – where mourners are encouraged to share memories of the one who has died. There will be tears. There may be laughter. There will certainly be a sense of richness as the person is remembered, his or her nature and history celebrated.

This process will go on and on – at family gatherings, at random times when a story comes to mind and is shared. This is invariably a lift. Even when the stories are not particularly complimentary, they bring back to us the complex and loved personality and life of the one we miss.

Conversely, one of the saddest mistakes survivors make is, out of their pain, never to speak of the loved one again. Such silence, far from diminishing the pain, just causes it to build up and may result in life-pervading bitterness.

So let’s talk. Let’s remember. Of course, not every occasion with family and friends is an occasion for recalling. But we are more apt to err on the side of silence.

- Hickman, Martha Whitmore. “Healing After a Loss”. New York: Harper Collins, (1994).