Hope and Dying
by Stephen P White, EPPC:
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of my father’s death; he was barely 60 years old when he died. He died during Lent, which will never not seem fitting to me. Lent is a good time to be reminded, however painfully, of how fleeting life is. It is also a good time to contemplate how the meaning of human frailty is transformed by the glorious events for which this Lenten season prepares us.
For a son who has lost his father, it’s easy to wish things were not as they are. It’s tempting to dwell on the innumerable “what-might-have-beens,” to grasp at possibilities unfulfilled – grandchildren unmet, songs unsung, joys unshared. But indulging in such sadness – and I confess, there is a certain sweetness in it – only masks the splendid gratuity of life, however brief. That all is not as I would have it be is an infinitesimal price to pay for it having been at all.
Lent is a time of preparation, of looking ahead. Lent is somehow dearer to me since Dad died. The hope of Easter is the hope of things yet to come, the hope of restoration, of resurrection. But hope is not for the future only. Hope changes the possibilities for how we suffer, for what we are willing to suffer. Hope allows us, like St. Paul, to “count all as loss,” here and now. Hope frees us.
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