Celebrate Death?

Do you celebrate any dates that are special just to you or your family? Maybe a birthday or anniversary? Maybe each May, you gratefully remember the day you finally graduated from school. I am preparing to celebrate an anniversary that some people might find strange. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my father’s death. I remember it like it was yesterday- I was a freshman in high school.

I was the one who found him dying; he was having a heart attack at age fifty-five. I remember initially being very confused by what was going on- I thought he would be ok for sure. After the ambulance left my house with him, I even invited the concerned neighborhood kids in for cookies- I pretended to be tough. After he died, I became numb- I did not feel a thing- nothing made sense to me. Soon after that, I got angry at God because it was not fair for my dad to die so young. I remember thinking, “Kids need a mom and a dad, and I am not done growing up yet”.

My family drew close to God in the pain, and I tentatively followed along. Every year that passed, I trusted our Lord more and He blessed me all the more. Each year I do not celebrate his absence or the negative feelings that I had, but the amazing goodness that God has managed to draw out of the worst that life has to offer- suffering and death. There were many areas of my life that needed to change at that time. The death of my dad was like a fire that God used to burn impurity out of me so that my faith would be stronger. St. Peter explains the mystery of this experience in the scriptures (1 Pt 1:6-7).

Through this death, I learned to be selfless, to make sacrifices, to love more deeply, and to pray for the dead, an experience that predates Christ by several hundred years (2 Mc 12:46). I can clearly see how God used this experience to prepare me to work in His Church and even to get married and have a family. Today when I look back, I am not sad (although I still have those days), but grateful to God for all that He has done through our family’s difficult loss. Please join me this day in a prayer for two things- 1) for my father’s soul (Larry) and all those close to us who have died, and 2) in gratitude to God for the powerful way He uses our suffering to strengthen our faith.