Being a pastor has involved a lot of conversations with people where the topic of death comes up. I don’t want to imply that the vocation is overly morbid, or that it is depressing because it is not. However, being a pastor has given me many opportunities to be with people as they were dying and to be with people as they experienced grief and loss. The overall effect of these experiences has been hopeful and joyful. I learned early in my career that there is nothing I can do to ease the pain of loss and grief. When people experience the death of a loved one their pain is real. There are, however, ways to share that journey of grief. Sometimes it simply involves being there with another and listening to what they have to say. Sometimes it involves conversation. Sometimes it involves sharing inspiration and faith that has been passed down for generations. There are no simple formulas for being with those who are experiencing grief, but experience does help calm fears and grant courage for the process.

Having been given these opportunities to be with those who are grieving means that I have had a lot of conversations with people about not only the process of dying, but the nature of what happens after someone dies. One of the things that being a minister does not do is to give firm answers about an afterlife. We don’t have special insider information about heaven. What I have been able to do is to listen to what others believe and to share with others a bit of what I believe. I also have studied scripture, tradition, history, and literature about death and life beyond death from a Christian perspective.

One of the assurances I offer to others that is a conviction I apply to my thinking about my own death and the deaths of those I love is that death is not the end. The beauty, the worth, the meaning, and the love of someone does not come to a sudden end with nothing to follow. There is ongoing relationship with a person who has died in the form of memory and story. There is a legacy that continues. Our children never met my father face to face. Both of my parents died before our first grandchild was born. But our children and grandchildren know and can tell stories of my father and mother. They are real characters in the life stories of those children.

Memory and story are not the only forms that life beyond death occurs, but they are meaningful forms that are relatively easily accessible to those who are grieving.

One of the hopes that many people of faith share is that there is some form of reunion that accompanies the experience of death. I write of this as a hope because we do not have firm knowledge or direct experience of dying. There are many stories of those who have had near death experiences, but as far as we know dying is a singular event that those of us who remain alive have not yet experienced. Since we know that death is a reality, we naturally speculate about what it would be like to die. Those speculations have been shared with generations of people and passed down to us in the form of faith and that faith is a source of hope when we think about the death of those we love and about our own deaths.

We all know that we are going to die, but we do not know what that will occur or what the experience will be like. To be fully alive, however, means that we must have faith and hope so that we are not overcome by fear and regrets.

In speaking of the nature of death, I sometimes use deep friendship as an example and a sign. There are some people in my life with whom I can continue a conversation that was started earlier. We may be apart for long periods of time, but when we get back together, the conversation comes easily. It is as if we can pick up a conversation right where we left off. I am always eager for opportunities to be with those friends and each time we get together is an occasion of deep joy. I know that they accept me as I am and that I need no pretense. I can let down my guard, say what I think, risk making mistakes, and simply enjoy their presence.

I believe that after death there is some kind of reunion with those who have gone before. I can’t say what form that reunion takes place, but I hope that it involves the continuation of those conversations that we left when we last parted.

For thousands of years our people have told the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. The descriptions of the event in the Gospels make it clear that the experience was beyond description. Words fail to accurately express the actual event. What we do read is a description of three people, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, each who lived in a different time, engaged in a conversation at one time in one place. Those who had died were present in the one who was alive so much that it seemed they were sharing a conversation. I find that image to be particularly powerful for me. There are ways that we connect with those who have gone before that defy the way we usually think of time. The past becomes present in a very real way. I can’t describe it fully. It is beyond words. But just because I can’t find the words to express something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

I live with hope about what comes next. I know how precious reunions with dear friends are and how much they mean to me. I treasure the conversations we have had in the past. I revel in the conversations we are given in the present. And I live in expectation of more conversations in the future.

None of this eases the pain of grief and loss, but for me it calms the fear of dying.