Death and Grief
Alvin Yoder (90) died during our church service this morning. He suffered a stroke earlier this morning and had been taken to the hospital. His death was announced during share time. This provided an opportunity for us to pray together for those who survive, and for a few people to share words of appreciation for Alvin.
Joe, who has been Alvin's closest neighbor all his life, commented (after a sermon on grace-filled speech) that Alvin, beneath a rather rugged exterior, was careful in his speech, and, in this area, served as a model to Joe.
Alvin's knowledge of Scripture--by memory--was legendary. A number of people remembered this out loud this morning.
Alvin's daughter Marietta is still on Sabbatical from many years of service in El Salvador. She was scheduled to return next Monday. Rachel, another daughter, is in Romania, teaching counseling in a Christian university. Frieda is teaching English as a second language in a university in China. A son, Oren, who is one of our ministers, had just left to attend Faith Builders in PA for winter term. I believe he had gotten only as far as Ohio where his wife's sister lives with her family. Lois works as a midwife in a clinic she helped establish, but she lives with her parents and helps see to their needs. Ernest lives with his family in Labette County in SE Kansas. That's six children--all serving the Lord in remarkable and ordinary ways.
********************
When Wendell was teaching composition class at Pilgrim, one year they did a booklet of stories about Alvin's life. Within the past week I've re-read that booklet and prepared to do a reprint.
I think that task will proceed on an accelerated track, given the number of friends and relatives who are likely to gather this week for Alvin's funeral.
As legendary as Alvin's Scripture knowledge were Alvin's physical prowess, his math brain, and his many death-defying feats--usually in the course of a day's work in roof repair or concrete construction. Among the stories recounted in the booklet are a number of times when he either plunged over the edge of a barn roof or was left dangling on the edge when a ladder escaped from under him--or narrowly averted similar scenarios. Once he fell head-first onto concrete, and another time, he fell off a roof at my Uncle Paul's house, and then, without revealing the episode, he calmly appeared at the door to say that he was ready for a ride home (as previously planned). Hilda accompanied him, but Alvin drove, shifting with his left hand--uncharacteristically. The next morning they learned that he wouldn't be coming to work since he had broken his wrist in the fall.
And then there were the times when he was driven over by a combine or a tractor . . .
Having died in the hospital from a stroke several hours previous--at age 90--looks like a pretty ordinary way to die when you consider all the other ways Alvin might have died.
*********************
Alvin once loaned me money. I was in college at the time and needed a bit of money to tide me over till I got income again from summer jobs. He charged me 2% interest, as I recall.
********************
Time, in the wake of the shootings in Tuscon, had a feature article on grieving which I found very fascinating. I have limited experience in this realm and thus, limited credibility. That's why I noted with satisfaction that some of my tentative observations are borne out by responses from people who speak of their own experience with grief.
The article told how the well-known "stages of grief" entered the vocabulary through the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in On Death and Dying, a book published in 1969. Since then, the "wisdom" has found common acceptance and often been repeated. The stages were based on one-time interviews with terminally ill people--not actually on survivors after a loved-one's death. Kubler-Ross formulated the sequence when she was up late one night, and never questioned any of the people she interviewed about the veracity of her definitions and sequencing of stages. A number of grieving myths have, in fact, grown up in the wake of the "stages of grief" dogma.
People who grieve often don't seem to be following exactly the grieving steps as Kubler-Ross outlines them. They feel them all at once, and they never get through the process, for example. The grief never entirely goes away. Talking about the grief or not talking about the loss--either approach can result in returning to fairly normal functioning in a timely manner. I remembered what Lori Miggiani said at their son Seth's funeral. "I've experienced all those stages already." She spoke of seeing God's hand in what had happened, but at other times saying to God "I want him back. You can't take him away."
The overall message of Time's article on grieving is that people are more resilient than is often thought, and most people do not need grief counseling and continuing "talk" about the loss to recover to the point of being able to go on with life fairly productively--usually within about six months. These things are sometimes necessary, but not nearly always, as some would suggest.
I do identify with Kubler-Ross's impulse to give some form to what might otherwise be a nebulous and perhaps chaotic phenomenon. And writing down the patterns she thought she saw emerging wasn't a bad idea. It just wasn't the last word, and people should probably not have been so quick to consider it to be the final word.
*******************
For some reason, what I was feeling one day last week took on grief meaning for me, perhaps because of what I had just read. The event that triggered my feelings of sadness and loss would not have appeared to any onlooker to have that potential. It was a fairly innocuous conversation with only mild disagreement. But the words I heard were very similar to words I heard many years ago, and I experienced a flood of emotion afterward--filled with memories of a very difficult time in my life, and the feelings of betrayal, injustice, and helplessness came roaring back. In some ways it felt like nothing had changed, and the situation now is not improved over the way it was then. In those moments the grief felt as fresh as ever. Yet I have, in most ways, gone on with life normally and productively since that long-ago disappointment.
Isn't this how grief is? Ebbing and flowing--usually creeping around and among the normal rhythms of life--but rising fast, and towering and crashing at other times? And no, I can't imagine ever "getting over it" in the sense that it will be a "nothing" to me. The experience has helped shape who I've become, and that is something. I don't plan to rehearse my cause for grief endlessly. I believe doing so can reinforce--not diminish--the feelings. But giving recognition to those events, evaluating them in the context of our present lives, thinking about whether any specific action is called for now, and writing about it, of course--these are measures that seem reasonable and might be profitable.
Joe, who has been Alvin's closest neighbor all his life, commented (after a sermon on grace-filled speech) that Alvin, beneath a rather rugged exterior, was careful in his speech, and, in this area, served as a model to Joe.
Alvin's knowledge of Scripture--by memory--was legendary. A number of people remembered this out loud this morning.
Alvin's daughter Marietta is still on Sabbatical from many years of service in El Salvador. She was scheduled to return next Monday. Rachel, another daughter, is in Romania, teaching counseling in a Christian university. Frieda is teaching English as a second language in a university in China. A son, Oren, who is one of our ministers, had just left to attend Faith Builders in PA for winter term. I believe he had gotten only as far as Ohio where his wife's sister lives with her family. Lois works as a midwife in a clinic she helped establish, but she lives with her parents and helps see to their needs. Ernest lives with his family in Labette County in SE Kansas. That's six children--all serving the Lord in remarkable and ordinary ways.
********************
When Wendell was teaching composition class at Pilgrim, one year they did a booklet of stories about Alvin's life. Within the past week I've re-read that booklet and prepared to do a reprint.
I think that task will proceed on an accelerated track, given the number of friends and relatives who are likely to gather this week for Alvin's funeral.
As legendary as Alvin's Scripture knowledge were Alvin's physical prowess, his math brain, and his many death-defying feats--usually in the course of a day's work in roof repair or concrete construction. Among the stories recounted in the booklet are a number of times when he either plunged over the edge of a barn roof or was left dangling on the edge when a ladder escaped from under him--or narrowly averted similar scenarios. Once he fell head-first onto concrete, and another time, he fell off a roof at my Uncle Paul's house, and then, without revealing the episode, he calmly appeared at the door to say that he was ready for a ride home (as previously planned). Hilda accompanied him, but Alvin drove, shifting with his left hand--uncharacteristically. The next morning they learned that he wouldn't be coming to work since he had broken his wrist in the fall.
And then there were the times when he was driven over by a combine or a tractor . . .
Having died in the hospital from a stroke several hours previous--at age 90--looks like a pretty ordinary way to die when you consider all the other ways Alvin might have died.
*********************
Alvin once loaned me money. I was in college at the time and needed a bit of money to tide me over till I got income again from summer jobs. He charged me 2% interest, as I recall.
********************
Time, in the wake of the shootings in Tuscon, had a feature article on grieving which I found very fascinating. I have limited experience in this realm and thus, limited credibility. That's why I noted with satisfaction that some of my tentative observations are borne out by responses from people who speak of their own experience with grief.
The article told how the well-known "stages of grief" entered the vocabulary through the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in On Death and Dying, a book published in 1969. Since then, the "wisdom" has found common acceptance and often been repeated. The stages were based on one-time interviews with terminally ill people--not actually on survivors after a loved-one's death. Kubler-Ross formulated the sequence when she was up late one night, and never questioned any of the people she interviewed about the veracity of her definitions and sequencing of stages. A number of grieving myths have, in fact, grown up in the wake of the "stages of grief" dogma.
People who grieve often don't seem to be following exactly the grieving steps as Kubler-Ross outlines them. They feel them all at once, and they never get through the process, for example. The grief never entirely goes away. Talking about the grief or not talking about the loss--either approach can result in returning to fairly normal functioning in a timely manner. I remembered what Lori Miggiani said at their son Seth's funeral. "I've experienced all those stages already." She spoke of seeing God's hand in what had happened, but at other times saying to God "I want him back. You can't take him away."
The overall message of Time's article on grieving is that people are more resilient than is often thought, and most people do not need grief counseling and continuing "talk" about the loss to recover to the point of being able to go on with life fairly productively--usually within about six months. These things are sometimes necessary, but not nearly always, as some would suggest.
I do identify with Kubler-Ross's impulse to give some form to what might otherwise be a nebulous and perhaps chaotic phenomenon. And writing down the patterns she thought she saw emerging wasn't a bad idea. It just wasn't the last word, and people should probably not have been so quick to consider it to be the final word.
*******************
For some reason, what I was feeling one day last week took on grief meaning for me, perhaps because of what I had just read. The event that triggered my feelings of sadness and loss would not have appeared to any onlooker to have that potential. It was a fairly innocuous conversation with only mild disagreement. But the words I heard were very similar to words I heard many years ago, and I experienced a flood of emotion afterward--filled with memories of a very difficult time in my life, and the feelings of betrayal, injustice, and helplessness came roaring back. In some ways it felt like nothing had changed, and the situation now is not improved over the way it was then. In those moments the grief felt as fresh as ever. Yet I have, in most ways, gone on with life normally and productively since that long-ago disappointment.
Isn't this how grief is? Ebbing and flowing--usually creeping around and among the normal rhythms of life--but rising fast, and towering and crashing at other times? And no, I can't imagine ever "getting over it" in the sense that it will be a "nothing" to me. The experience has helped shape who I've become, and that is something. I don't plan to rehearse my cause for grief endlessly. I believe doing so can reinforce--not diminish--the feelings. But giving recognition to those events, evaluating them in the context of our present lives, thinking about whether any specific action is called for now, and writing about it, of course--these are measures that seem reasonable and might be profitable.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:28 PM
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