The Good-bye Makes the Journey Harder Still

I’ve told you before how much I love listening to ‘70s music.  It’s the music I grew up with, and I think for most of us the music we grew up with has a special place in our hearts.  Yesterday I was listening to the song “Oh, Very Young” by Cat Stevens.  I’ve heard it many times, of course, but for some reason yesterday the line at the end of the second verse jumped out at me.  It goes, “And though you want to last forever, you know you never will/And the goodbye makes the journey harder still.”

I suppose I think about death a little more than most people.  It’s kind of an occupational hazard, I guess.  When you go for seven years averaging a funeral about every three weeks, death kind of becomes a permanent part of your life.  I’m not complaining about that--it’s always an honor to be invited into the life of a family when they’re going through a particularly hard time.  I’m just stating a fact.

I don’t know that I fear death, exactly.  But I can’t honestly say I’m looking forward to it, either.  I’m in good health, and I enjoy my life on earth.  I think there’s still plenty that God has for me to do here.  But of course, I don’t know that, any more than anyone else does.  I could pass on tonight for all I know.  I think, though, that death is like a lot of things--we can’t really know how we’re going to react until we’re faced with the reality of it.  And right now, even though I obviously know that I will die eventually--I know I won’t last forever, as the song says--I’m not expecting it to happen any time soon.  So, I don’t know how I’m going to react to it when the time comes.

But the other line from the song struck me, too.  “The goodbye makes the journey harder still.”  I’ve talked to numerous people who knew they were dying, and many of them said something similar.  They said they were not afraid to die, but they just didn’t like the thought of having to leave their loved ones behind.

It’s understandable.  No matter how much faith we have, it’s understandable.  It’s one of the things that makes death hard on the survivors, too.  Death is a separation, and we never want to be separated from people we love.  And what makes this separation particularly hard is that it feels so complete.  We cannot call.  We cannot write.  We cannot send an email or a text.  We cannot do anything to reconnect with our loved one, at least until our time comes some day.

Death is hard.  It’s supposed to be hard.  We’re told in the Bible that Jesus himself cried when his good friend Lazarus died, and not only did Jesus understand death better than we ever can, he knew he was going to bring Lazarus back to life.  If Jesus cried at the death of a loved one, we certainly can, too.

For Christians, we know that because of our faith in Jesus Christ, and because of God’s incredible love and grace and mercy, we will go to heaven and be reunited with our loved ones.  I hope, if you’re grieving right now, that this is something that helps.  But it’s still okay to feel sad.  As I said, we’re supposed to.

The grieving process takes the time it takes.  I don’t know if you ever “get over it”, you just move on.  And no one can do it for you.  But we can be there for each other.  We can provide a listening ear and a loving heart.  So if you need one of those, please reach out to someone.  You can always reach out to me or to our church.  We want to be there for you.