Aunt Lilith's Funeral

November 16, 2014

Waking up and thinking about death in the middle of the night makes everything else seem very insignificant. Growing up Aunt Lilith was my favorite person in the world; she was a teenager and so cool. We shared the same bedroom in my grandparents’ home. She was my idol and when people would say I looked like her, I felt so proud. I remember how fun it was to tag along on dates with Uncle Dick. I didn’t realize that was my grandmother’s idea not theirs.

Yesterday at her funeral the reality of her death, cut deep into my heart. Death itself became more real. When I was a Hospice Social Worker, I helped others face death but I look back now and realize I never faced my own. I remember my father telling me he was scared when he was dying. I blocked the depth of that emotion too. But there was no running last night, I felt fear that goes deep to the core.

I managed to fall back to sleep and remembered the words; death be not proud. So this morning I looked up John Dunne’s famous poem and found comfort in remembering who I am and what I believe:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou are slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Today I know I will never think the same for facing death in the middle of the night makes everything else very insignificant.