George R. Robie, D. Min.

"The greater the pain, the fewer the words"

Last July, I stood in a funeral home receiving line following the unexpected death of my twenty three year old nephew. As friends and strangers filed past I became aware that there is a dearth of meaningful language capable of being spoken in a time of horrendous tragedy. The absence is so profound that any words of consolation seem to quickly dissolve into banality.

One prime example is a phrase folks seem to have adopted from television and movies: “I’m sorry for your loss!” These five words roll off the tongue with such ease as to force one to focus on the intent behind the words or unspoken gestures as genuine symbols of consolation. Perhaps that is how it should be. The fact that all those friends, neighbors and co-workers came to pay their respects meant the world to our family. Their care and concern helped us bear the pain of Zach’s death, but at the same time, I got awfully tired of hearing “I’m sorry for your loss.” I guess I was looking for a deeper more intimate response from someone who seemed to understand what our family was experiencing. I was looking for someone capable of speaking words with potential for healing. I now see how unfair it was of me to have such an expectation; after all, these mourners, just like members of my family, were in a state of shock and overwhelmed by grief and numbness. They, like we, were stranded in a wilderness called mourning.

A man named Michael, in a personal blog following the death of his son, written on October 22, 2006, and appearing in the online news resource, “ The Onion,” aptly described what my family and I were experiencing. He defined mourning as the …

“inability of coworkers and friends to understand what it means to lose a child, one who is loved by so many. It is the experience of having people from the past reappear almost miraculously as if it were the right thing and the way those who watch over us and guide us wish it to be in our lives without them. It is …a dream, a waking dream, and nights filled with events exhausting in their wonder. It, mourning, is without words, with far too many words. Most of all, it is love in its’ purest form.”[1]

That day at the funeral home all of us were searching for manna in the wilderness; words capable of conveying, even in a minute way, the grief we felt in our hearts, as if such words could mitigate the emptiness and hunger in our souls. If there were words capable of making sense out of the senseless, we needed to hear them and say them, but there were none.

In retrospect I see how my preoccupation with what I felt was missing caused me to discount the very gifts my family and I were being given by countless people. For example, later in the evening in the same reception line, an old family friend walked up to me. He was one of my late father’s fishing buddies, now in his late seventies and still as tough as nails; a man who works every day inspecting water pipes. Everyone in town calls him “Little Joe.” Little Joe stood in front of me and looked me straight in the eye. He reached out his hand, grasped mine and nodded his head as a tear rolled down his cheek. Then he put his arms around me and we wept. In that moment and for a brief time, Little Joe became my chaplain. And, I seemed to have forgotten the young man who stood in front of me, tears streaming down his face, as he held a picture of my nephew wearing his Boy Scout uniform. For one reason or another I forgot all of the hugs, the little acts of compassion such as someone handing me a Kleenex, and later, how students at the public school where my sister works planted some trees on the school grounds in memory of Zach because they loved him.

As I look back on the days surrounding Zach’s death and funeral, I’ve concluded that if there is one aspect of mourning professional chaplains need to remember, it is “the greater the pain, the fewer the words.” A fellow chaplain helped me remember such is the case while ministering to me weeks after Zach’s death. She reminded me, and I needed reminding, even though I’ve been a chaplain for over thirty years, how important it is to return to the basics and share presence through body language. She reminded me there are times in life when someone reaching out to hold a hand or giving a hug, being willing to take the risk to physically enter into another’s pain, can help one discover a pathway to healing.

If we as professional chaplains think we have been called to minister just by using our wits, we might want to rethink that position. One of the most important skills a chaplain can develop is the ability to enter that wilderness called mourning recognizing there are times in life when words are absolutely futile and our presence, being there, is heard over and above the babble of far too many words.

Author's Note: Thank you, Sheila and Ray.

Footnote:

[1] Michael’s Blog can be found at http://personals.theonion.com/blog/bonobomichael

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