Life Vocations

Words Spoken at My Mother’s Funeral

A Note Before These Words

It has been three years since I stood and spoke these words at my mother’s funeral. I am sharing them now — not because grief has finished its work in me, for it has not, but because more recent losses have sent me back to them. I have found that words written for one goodbye have a way of speaking to the next. Grief does not stay in the single place where we first set it down. It gathers. It stacks. It returns to us on new occasions and asks, again, to be felt.

What I have come to trust is that the hope beneath these words does not move. The losses change; the hope does not. It is anchored not in the passing of time, nor in my own ability to make peace with what has happened, but in the promise that Christ has gone before us — and that those who fall asleep in Him are not lost, but kept. That is what allowed me to stand and speak at all on that day, and it is what allows me to return to these words now.

And so I offer them again — lightly edited, and more fully formed than the trembling version I read aloud that morning — in the hope that they might do for someone else what they continue to do for me: to name the hard things honestly, to lay them down, and to turn, finally, toward rest.

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When I think about my life with my mother, I cannot stop thinking about how different — how almost foreign — my experience of her was from that of my siblings and of others who knew and loved her. At times it is as though we are describing two different people. I have come to understand my own life as a series of flash points: specific moments when an event arrives and changes the course of everything so deeply that it changes who you are. I have had three.

The most recent was September 2006, when I looked into the screaming eyes of my son in a small ground-floor room in Seoul and finally knew what love is. Before that came October 1997, when I took Mellisa’s hand at St. Peter’s and understood at last what it means for two to become one. And the first — though I was only three months old — was March 1975, when my father took his life.

From that one event, everything changed, for everyone, in a deep and cavernous way. I cannot tell you what life with my mother was like before that point; I was far too young to remember it. But I can tell you that it bonded the two of us in a way that was wholly our own. You already know the great things about her, and how truly blessed we are to have known her.

Still, I have often asked: Why, God? Why put me here? I was not necessarily planned. And the answer I keep returning to is this — I was put here to help those who need help. People like my mother.

And my mother — hers was not an easy life. But now she is at peace. She is at rest. I know that she woke in Heaven, in the warm embrace of Jesus, where, as the Scriptures promise, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Think about that. She is finally at rest. No more pain. No more regrets. She deserves this, and I must not be selfish in my grief; I must be glad for her. She is at peace.

So here we are, left with the tapestry of memories — including the hard ones. And I have come to believe that the time has come to put the hard ones to rest: to remember the good, and to release the rest.

The Spencer years. Yes — there was guilt, shame, pain, addiction, abuse, infidelity. Put these to rest, and focus instead on the good times. Times like those that followed.

The Sheboygan years. Yes — there was death, illness, and teenage rebellion (I’m sorry). Put these to rest as well, and focus instead on the Bricco gatherings, her years with Rodger, and Beamer. And, of course, the decorating.

The Neenah years. Yes — there was more illness, isolation, and pain. Put these to rest, and focus instead on the time she shared with her grandchildren, whom she loved dearly; on her new friends; and on the season she finally had to discover herself.

I will end with two passages from Paul that I hold close.

¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

— 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 (NIV)

I hope that you find rest. I know that it is time for me to rest.

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

— Romans 5:1–5 (NIV)